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rkV 


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LITERATURE  PRIMER,  edited 

by  John  Richard  Green,  M.  A. 
GREEK. 


SftttratttM  primers. 

Edited  by  John  Richard  Green,  M.A. 


GREEK 

LITERATURE 


R.    C.    J  EBB,    M.A. 

PROFESSOR    OF   GREEK    IN    THE    UNIVERSITY   OF    GLASGOW. 


UNIVERSITY  LIBRARY 

UNIVERSITY  OF  NORTH  CAROLINA 

AT  CHAPEL  HILL 


NEW     YORK: 


D.     APPLETON     AND     COMPANY, 
i,    3,    and    5    BOND    STREET. 

1884. 


CONTENTS. 
PART   I.     THE   EARLY  LITERATURE: 

TO  475   B.C. 
CHAPTER   I. 
Introduction. 

CHAPTER   II. 
Epic  Poetry. 

CHAPTER   III. 
Elegiac  and  Iambic  Poetry.     Lyric  Poetry. 

PART   II.     THE  ATTIC  LITERATURE: 

475— 3°°  B-c- 
CHAPTER  I. 
The  Drama. 

CHAPTER   II. 
The  Beginnings  of  Prose.     History. 

CHAPTER   III. 
Oratory.     Philosophical  Prose. 

PART   III.     THE   LITERATURE    OF 
THE    DECADENCE: 

300  B.C. — 529  A.D. 

CHAPTER   I. 
From  Alexander  to  Augustus  :  300—30  is.c 

CHAPTER  II. 
From  Augustus  to  Justinian:  30  b.c. — 529  a.d. 


PRIMER 


OF 


GREEK    LITERATURE. 


PART  I.     THE  EARLY  LITERATURE. 
CHAPTER  I. 

INTRODUCTION. 

i.  A  Primer  of  Greek  Literature  should  aim  at 
being  useful,  not  only  to  students  of  Greek,  but  also  to 
those  who  do  not  know  Greek,  and  who  will  never 
read  a  Greek  book  except  in  a  translation.  The  civi- 
lised world  is  agreed  in  holding  the  great  literature  of 
old  Greece  to  be  one  of  the  most  precious  things 
that  have  come  down  from  the  past,  and  all  educated 
people,  whether  they  know  Greek  or  not,  may  natur- 
ally wish  to  know  something  about  the  contents  of 
Greek  literature.  This  sketch  is  intended  to  serve  as 
a  framework  into  which  those  who  read  any  of  the 
Greek  books,  whether  in  the  original  or  in  English, 
may  fit  what  they  read.  The  unity  of  Greek  Litera- 
ture is  not  the  unity  of  a  library  but  the  unity  of  a 
living  body.  In  this,  more  perhaps  than  in  any  other 
literature,  we  shall  fail  really  to  understand  any  one 
part  unless  we  see  clearly  what  it  has  to  do  with  the 
rest.  But  first — Can  we  point  to  any  broad  character- 
istics which  at  once  give  Greek  literature  a  worth  and 
interest  of  its  own  for  modern  life  ? 


6  GREEK  LITERATURE.  [part  i. 

2.  The  rational  energy  of  the  Greeks. 
— The  Greeks  were  not  the  first  people  who  found 
out  how  to  till  the  earth  well,  or  to  fashion  metals, 
or  to  grow  rich  by  war  or  commerce,  or  to  build 
splendid  houses  and  temples.  But  they  were  the  first 
people  who  tried  to  make  reason  the  guide  of  their 
social  life.  One  proof  of  this  is  found  in  the  very 
existence  of  the  Greek  cities.  While  other  men  were 
living  in  tribes  or  under  despotic  kings,  the  Greeks 
had  already  gathered  themselves  together  in  cities, — 
societies  ruled,  not  by  force,  but  by  the  persuasions 
of  equal  law.  Another  proof  of  it  is  found  in  the 
Greek  books.  There  we  find  writers  of  all  sorts,  poets 
and  historians  and  philosophers,  habitually  striving 
to  get  at  the  reasons  of  things.  On  this  side,  Greek 
literature  has  an  interest  such  as  belongs  to  no  other 
literature.  It  shows  us  how  men  first  set  about  sys- 
tematic thinking.  It  shows  us  how  some  questions 
which  have  been  solved  since,  and  others  which  are 
being  discussed  still,  appeared  to  the  people  who  first 
seriously  tried  to  answer  them. 

3.  The  bearing  of  Greek  thought  on  modern 
life. — But  the  Greek  books  are  not  merely  interesting 
as  showing  the  methods  and  aims  of  early  thinkers. 
They  contain  results,  too,  which  have  had  the  deepest 
and  widest  influence  on  the  whole  of  modern  life,  in 
religion,  in  morality,  in  science,  in  politics,  in  litera- 
ture. The  thoughts  of  the  great  Greek  thinkers  have 
been  bearing  fruit  in  the  world  ever  since  they  were 
first  uttered.  In  some  special  sciences,  the  work 
done  by  the  Greeks  remains  a  basis  of  study  to  this 
day,  as  in  Ethics  and  in  Logic  and  in  Geometry.  It 
is  in  Greek  historians  and  Greek  orators  that  we  read 
some  of  the  political  lessons  most  directly  useful  for 
our  own  time.  Neither  the  history  of  Christian  doc- 
trine, nor  the  outer  history  of  the  Christian  Church, 
can  be  fully  understood  without  reference  to  the 
character  and  work  of  the  Greek  mind.     Under  the 


chap.  I.]  INTRODUCTION.  7 

influence  of  Christianity,  two  principal  elements  have 
entered  into  the  spiritual  life  of  the  modern  world  : 
one  of  these  has  been  Hebrew ;  the  other  has  been 
Greek. 

4.  Originality  of  Greek  Literature. — The 
chief  types  of  poetry,  such  as  the  epic,  lyric,  dramatic, 
— the  chief  types  of  prose,  such  as  the  historical,  philo- 
sophical, oratorical — are  so  much  a  matter  of  course 
now  that  we  are  apt  to  think  of  them  as  existing  in 
the  nature  of  things.  But  some  of  them  did  not  exist 
at  all,  and  others  existed  only  in  rude  germs,  when 
the  Greek  genius  began  its  work.  One  after  another, 
as  the  need  of  expression  in  each  kind  was  felt,  each  of 
these  types  was  perfected  by  the  creative  force  of  that 
Greek  genius.  In  Greek  literature,  then,  we  have  not 
merely  a  literature  very  interesting  in  itself :  we  have 
the  fountain-head  of  all  Western  literature.  The  in- 
fluence of  Rome  on  modern  literature  has  in  some 
cases  been  more  direct  than  that  of  Greece.  But  if 
the  influence  is  tracked  to  its  spring,  any  broad  stream 
of  it  will  carry  us  back  to  a  Greek  source. 

5.  Form. — The  Greeks  were  a  physically  beautiful 
race,  with  great  quickness  and  fineness  of  perception, 
which  made  them  feel  at  once  when  anything  was 
exaggerated  or  absurd,  or,  as  we  say,  in  bad  taste. 
One  of  their  favourite  maxims  was,  'Do  nothing  too 
much.'  They  were  naturally  obedient  in  all  things  to  a 
sense  of  fitness  and  measure, — what  they  called  kairos, 
a  word  which  means  literally  '  precision,'  the  instinct 
of  drawing  the  line,  as  it  were,  at  the  right  place.  So 
when  they  built  a  temple,  this  instinct  kept  them  from 
making  one  part  of  it  too  large  in  proportion  to 
another,  or  from  adding  ornament  in  the  wrong 
place  :  and  this  is  the  reason  why  such  a  building  as 
the  Parthenon  at  Athens,  with  its  noble  simplicity  and 
symmetry,  is  so  perfect  of  its  kind.  Or  if  a  Greek 
made  a  statue,  not  only  did  he  make  the  limbs  and 
features  on  just  the  right  scale  for  each  other,  but  he 


8  GREEK  LITERA  TURE.  [part  i. 

refrained  from  trying  to  make  the  stone  express  more 
than  it  fitly  could,  or  do  duty  for  a  picture.  In  the 
same  way,  when  they  wrote  books,  the  Greeks  were 
guided  by  their  sense  of  fitness.  They  felt  that  it  was 
out  of  proportion,  and  therefore  ugly,  if  the  words 
were  grander  or  rarer  than  the  thoughts,  and  that  a 
style  which  might  be  fitting  in  one  kind  of  composi- 
tion would  be  out  of  place  in  another.  Above  all. 
the  Greeks  felt  that  a  writer  ought  to  be  char,  and 
that  any  elaborate  putting  together  of  words  which 
does  not  make  the  thought  clear  is  worse  even  than 
misplaced  finery.  So,  in  the  best  work  of  Greek 
writers,  we  generally  find  these  two  things.  First, 
the  style  is  of  the  right  kind  for  the  subject;  in 
poetry,  for  instance,  the  epic  style  is  kept  distinct 
from  the  lyric ;  historical  prose  is  not  written  like 
oratory.  Secondly,  the  writer  tries  to  be  clear.  He 
chooses  the  words  for  the  thoughts,  he  does  not  en- 
slave the  thoughts  to  the  words. 

6.  Greek  Literature  and  the  Study  of  Lan- 
guage.— The  Greeks  excelled,  as  we  have  seen,  in 
an  instinct  for  beauty,  and  in  the  power  of  creating 
beautiful  forms  :  and,  of  all  the  beautiful  things  which 
they  created,  their  own  language  was  the  first  and  the 
most  wonderful.  The  Greek  mind  was  very  bright 
and  keen,  and  was  accustomed  to  feeling  fine  dis- 
tinctions and  light  shades  of  meaning.  And  so  the 
Greeks  gradually  moulded  their  language  so  that  it 
could  express  these  fine  distinctions  and  light  shades 
by  very  simple  means,  and  yet  with  perfect  accuracy. 
By  using  one  turn  of  phrase  instead  of  another  which 
would  have  been  equally  correct,  or  with  the  help  of 
those  little  words  called  '  particles '  which  answered 
to  the  play  of  feature  or  tone  of  voice  in  talking,  or 
even  by  a  slight  change  in  the  order  of  the  sentence, 
a  Greek  could  mark  with  delicate  precision  the  mean- 
ing which  he  meant  to  convey.  This  peculiar  power 
which  the  language  acquired  of  being  easily  bent  into 


chap,  i.]  INTRODUCTION.  Q 

the  exact  shape  of  the  thought  entitles  Greek  to  be 
called  the  most  flexible  of  languages.  Grammars  give 
classified  examples  of  this  flexibility.  But  as  the  fields 
are  better  for  a  botanist  than  the  best  collection  of 
dried  flowers,  so  we  must  go  to  the  Greek  books  if 
we  would  see  the  language  in  the  fulness  of  its  elastic 
life.  No  one  who  is  a  stranger  to  Greek  literature 
has  seen  how  perfect  an  instrument  it  is  possible  for 
human  speech  to  be. 

7.  General  Course  of  Greek  Literature. — 
Greek  has  lived  on  from  the  days  before  Homer 
into  our  own,  one  and  the  same  language  always,  in 
spite  of  small  changes, — still  giving  new  proofs  of 
its  flexibility  in  the  ease  with  which  it  finds  terse  ex- 
pression for  modern  ideas.  And  this  undying  lan- 
guage has  never  ceased  to  have  a  literature ;  a  rude 
and  scanty  literature,  indeed,  it  was  during  one  part 
of  its  modern  course,  yet  even  then  lit  up  now  and 
again  by  the  enthusiasm  of  Greek  scholars  for  the 
old  Greek  genius.  This  long  and  still  vigorous  life 
has  had  three  great  stages  : — 1.  The  Old  Literature, 
from  Homer  to  529  a.d.,  when  the  Schools  of  heathen 
Philosophy  were  closed  by  the  edict  of  the  Emperor 
Justinian  :  2.  The  Middle  or  Byzantine  Literature, 
from  529  a.d.  to  the  capture  of  Constantinople  by  the 
Turks  (1453  a.d.):  3.  The  Modern  Literature,  of 
which  the  first  beginning  may  be  taken  from  the 
satirical  poetry,  in  the  popular  dialect,  of  the  monk 
Theodorus  Prodromus  (1143 — 1180  a.d.)  in  the  reign 
of  the  Emperor  Manuel  Comnenus.  At  the  end  of 
the  last  century,  the  Greek  patriot  and  scholar  Koraes 
helped,  by  his  example,  to  purify  the  literary  dialect 
from  many  corrupt  forms  and  foreign  words. 

8.  The  Old  Literature. — We  have  to  do  here 
with  the  Old  Literature  only.  It  may  be  sub-divided 
into  the  Early  Literature;  the  Attic  Literature;  and 
the  Literature  of  the  Decadence. 

I.     The  Early   literature   begins  with  Homer 


io  GREEK  LITERATURE.  [parti. 

and  extends  down  to  about  475  B.C.  Epic  poetry 
flourishes.  Elegiac,  Iambic  and  Lyric  Poetry  arise. 
Prose  writing,  though  in  a  rude  form,  begins  among 
the  Ionian  Greeks  of  Asia  Minor. 

II.  The  Attic  Literature  flourishes  from  about 
475  to  300  B.C.  Dramatic  Poetry  reaches  its  perfec- 
tion at  Athens,  both  in  Tragedy  and  in  Comedy  :  and 
the  Athenians  also  perfect  a  Prose  Literature  in  his- 
tory, oratory,  and  philosophical  dialogue.  The  Greek 
genius  has  now  finished  its  work  of  creating  beautiful 
forms  :  and  it  has  now  lost  the  mainspring  of  its  old 
energy,  political  freedom.  We  pass  from  the  age  of 
creative  art  in  verse  and  prose  to  the  age  of  learned 
work  in  letters  and  science. 

III.  The  Literature  of  the  Decadence  has 
two  chief  periods. 

I.  The  Alexandrian  period,  from  300  B.C.  till 
Greece  became  subject  to  Rome  in  146  B.C. 

II.  The  Graeco-Roman  period,  from  146  B.C.  till 
the  Schools  of  heathen  Philosophy  were  closed  in 
529  A.D. 

9.  Natural  Growth  of  Greek  Literature. — 
The  great  literature  of  Greece  was  not  artificial,  but 
grew  naturally  out  of  Greek  life.  As  the  year  brings 
violets  before  roses  and  ripens  one  fruit  earlier  than 
another,  so  the  golden  time  of  the  Greek  genius  has  its 
seasons,  in  which  first  one  sort  of  growth,  and  then 
another,  blossoms,  flowers  and  fades.  A  literature 
which  copies  foreign  models  may  begin  with  any  kind 
of  verse  or  prose,  and  may  have  several  different  kinds 
in  vigour  at  once.  But  the  Greeks  had  no  models. 
They  invented  the  styles  of  poetry  and  prose  which 
they  perfected,  one  after  another.  The  process  of 
invention  went  step  by  step  with  the  development  of 
their  mental  and  social  life.  Each  great  branch  of 
the  Greek  race,  as  its  natural  turn  came,  did  that 
special  part  in  the  work  which  it  was  fittest  to  do. 

10.  The  three  great  branches  were  the  Aeolian, 


chap.  I.]  INTRODUCTION.  II 

the  Dorian  and  the  Ionian.  At  the  time  when  literary 
history  begins,  the  chief  seats  of  the  Aeolians  were 
Thessaly,  Boeotia,  Aetolia,  and  Acarnania;  in  the 
Peloponnesus,  Arcadia,  Elis  and  Achaia;  the  N.W. 
coasts  of  Asia  Minor,  and  the  island  of  Lesbos;  and 
great  colonies,  such  as  Croton,  in  Magna  Graecia  on 
the  S.E.  coast  of  Italy.  The  Dorians  held  Argolis, 
Messenia  and  Laconia  in  the  Peloponnesus;  Corinth 
and  Megara;  settlements  on  the  S.W.  coasts  of  Asia 
Minor;  the  islands  of  Crete  and  Rhodes;  Syracuse 
and  other  colonies  on  the  E.  and  S.  coasts  of  Sicily; 
Tarentum  and  other  colonies  in  Magna  Graecia.  The 
Attic  part  of  the  Ionian  stock  possessed  Attica  and 
Euboea;  Ionians  were  settled  on  the  W.  coast  of 
Asia  Minor,  between  the  Aeolians  on  the  north  and 
the  Dorians  on  the  south;  in  the  islands  of  Samos 
and  Chios,  and  in  most  of  the  Aegean  islets;  and  in 
widely  spread  colonies,  including  cities  in  Italy,  Sicily, 
and  on  the  Euxine. 

ii.  Each  of  these  three  branches  used  its  own 
modification  of  the  Greek  language,  and  this  modifi- 
cation was  called  its  dialect.  The  Aeolic  dialect, 
suited  to  a  quick,  tripping  utterance,  was  truer  than 
any  other  to  the  oldest  forms  of  the  language  ;  but  it 
always  remained  comparatively  poor  and  rude  for 
literary  purposes ;  and  even  the  Aeolic  of  Lesbos, 
where  the  dialect  had  been  cultivated  in  poetry, 
could  be  described  by  Athenians  of  Plato's  time  as 
'a  barbarian  idiom.'  Greek  is  distinguished  among 
Indo-European  languages  by  the  completeness  and 
nicety  of  its  vowel-system ;  and  one  main  distinction 
between  the  Greek  dialects  consisted  in  their  treat- 
ment of  the  vowels.  In  Aeolic,  the  o  and  u  sounds 
prevailed.  The  Doric  dialect  best  preserved  the 
oldest  sounds  of  the  language ;  it  was  a  highland 
dialect,  the  terse  and  sinewy  speech  of  a  steadfast 
race,  whose  grave  earnestness  was  joined  to  a  certain 
dry  humour.  In  Doric,  the  broad  a  sound  prevailed. 
2 


12  GREEK  LITERATURE.  [parti. 

The  Ionic  dialect  was  the  smooth,  harmonious 
language  of  an  ease-loving  people,  gifted  with  bright 
and  versatile  intelligence,  educated  to  the  contempla- 
tive enjoyment  of  natural  beauty  by  the  climate  and 
scenery  of  the  Aegean  coasts  and  islands,  and  fami- 
liarised with  elegant  luxury  by  intercourse  with  Asiatics 
and  Phoenicians.  It  was  characterised  by  dislike  of 
all  rough  combinations,  by  partiality  for  the  liquid 
meeting  of  vowels,  and  especially  by  love  of  the  soft 
e  sound. 

12.  The  Attic  dialect  was  a  modified  form  of 
the  Ionic,  representing  a  happy  medium  between  the 
too  enervated  Ionic  and  the  somewhat  harsh  Doric 
In  its  mature  phase,  it  was  the  artistic  creation  of 
Attic  Tragedy,  influenced  both  by  the  epic  language 
of  the  Homeric  poems  and  by  the  choral  poetry  of 
the  Dorians.  Between  475  and  300 B.C.  Attic  became 
established  as  the  standard  dialect  of  Greek  literature. 
But  the  separate  life  of  the  Greek  cities,  the  physical 
partition  of  Greece  Proper  by  mountain-barriers  and 
far-reaching  arms  of  the  sea,  and  the  variety  of  climate 
both  in  Greece  and  in  the  scattered  Greek  settlements, 
favoured  the  preservation  of  the  dialects  down  to  late 
times.  All  the  dialects  were  successively  brought 
into  play  by  the  literary  development. 

13.  First,  the  Ionians  in  the  colonies  of  Asia 
Minor, — with  their  keen  feeling  for  grace  of  form, 
their  genial  sympathy  with  everything  bright  and 
joyous  in  nature,  their  delight  in  adventure,  and  their 
pliant,  musical  language,  so  well  fitted  for  fluent, 
eager  narrative, — wove  the  warlike  stories  of  heroes 
and  gods  into  Epic  Poetry.  Theirs,  too,  was  Elegiac 
Poetry,  the  first  slight  deviation  from  the  Epic.  Then 
the  Aeolians  of  Lesbos,  proud,  chivalrous,  imagina- 
tive, sensuous,  brought  forth  the  Lyric  Song  of  personal 
passion  in  war  or  love,  with  that  union  of  fiery 
strength  and  tenderness  which  marked  the  Aeolic 
speech.    The  Dorians  of  the  Peloponnesus  and  of 


chap.  I.]  INTRODUCTION.  13 

the  colonies  in  Sicily  and  Southern  Italy  created  the 
Choral  Lyric  Poetry,  to  be  used  at  the  festivals  of 
cities  or  princes,  or  in  the  worship  of  the  gods : 
poetry  in  which  the  simple  and  earnest  religious  faith 
of  the  Dorians,  their  intensely  conservative  pride  in 
the  traditions  and  institutions  of  the  Dorian  State,  and 
their  love  for  the  usages  of  Dorian  home-life,  were 
uttered  in  the  broad,  massive  harmonies  of  the  Dorian 
speech.  Lastly,  the  most  gifted  branch  of  the  Ionians, 
the  Attic  people,  with  their  happy  balance  of  quali- 
ties, blended  together  elements  of  all  the  earlier  kinds 
in  the  most  complex  and  artistic  form  of  all,  the 
Drama ;  and,  as  the  Greek  mind  and  culture  reached 
their  full  ripeness,  raised  Greek  Prose  from  its  rude 
beginnings  in  Ionia  to  the  varied  forms  of  a  mature 
Prose  Literature.  The  Attic  work,  both  in  verse  and 
prose,  had  a  universal  stamp  ?  it  came  from  the  centre 
of  the  Greek  spirit,  and  appealed  to  all  the  Greeks. 

14.  In  the  earlier  poetry  and  prose,  the  dialect 
employed  is  determined  chiefly  by  the  species 
of  the  composition,  rather  than  by  the  birthplace 
of  the  composer.  The  epic  poets  of  Ionia  gradually 
formed  a  diction  of  their  own,  Ionic  in  its  general 
character,  but  not  such  Ionic  as  was  commonly 
spoken.  This  epic  language  of  Ionia  came  to  be 
borrowed  more  or  less  by  all  poets,  whether  Ionian 
by  birth  or  not,  who  put  tales  about  heroes  into  verse. 
Thus  it  is  used,  though  with  some  alloy  from  their 
native  dialects,  by  the  Aeolian  epic  poet  Hesiod  and 
by  the  Dorian  elegiac  poet  Theognis.  And,  since 
this  Ionian  epic  dialect  had  thus  established  itself  as 
the  proper  dialect  for  story,  it  was  used  by  the  earliest 
writers,  philosophers  or  historians,  who  set  forth  their 
thoughts  in  prose;  as  by  the  historian  Herodotus,  the 
native  of  a  Dorian  city.  The  pure  Ionic  dialect 
was  that  in  which  Iambic  poetry  was  first  composed; 
and  hence  we  find  some  pure  Ionic  forms  retained  in 
the   iambic   verse  of  Attic  Tragedy.      The    Doric 


14  GREEK  LITERATURE.  [parti. 

dialect,  again,  belonged  especially  to  Choral  Lyric 
poetry ;  it  is  therefore  blended  with  the  epic  idiom, 
and  with  his  own  Aeolic,  by  Pindar;  and  it  enters 
into  the  choral  songs  of  Attic  Tragedy.  Aeolic  was 
the  chosen  dialect  of  love-songs,  and  it  is  used  for 
this  strain  by  the  Dorian  poet  Theocritus.  A  poet 
could  vary  his  dialect  to  suit  different  kinds  of  com- 
position. Theocritus  wrote  his  pastoral  poems  in 
Doric;  the  Attic  Tyrtaeus  used  the  Ionian  epic  dialect 
for  his  elegies,  but  wove  Doric  forms  into  his  march- 
ing-songs. Thus,  by  a  division  of  labour  among  the 
dialects,  the  literature  gradually  brought  out 
all  the  faculties  of  the  language,  giving  free 
play  to  each  in  the  way  that  nature  seemed  to  have 
marked  out  for  it. 

15.  The  art  of  writing. — There  can  be  no 
literature,  in  any  proper  sertse  of  the  word,  without 
writing.  For  literature  implies  fixed  form :  and, 
though  memory  may  do  great  feats,  a  merely  oral 
tradition  cannot  guarantee  fixed  form.  The  Greeks 
got  their  alphabet  from  the  Phoenicians,  and  at  first 
called  the  letters  '  Phoenician  signs.'  Now  the  Greeks 
had  dealings  with  Phoenician  merchants  while  Sidon 
was  still  a  great  commercial  and  naval  power, — at 
least  as  early  as  1100  B.C.,  probably  earlier.  It  seems 
unlikely  that  the  Greeks,  with  their  bright  wits,  their 
quickness  in  taking  hints,  and  their  love  of  story, 
should  have  allowed  many  centuries  to  go  by  before 
they  caught  up  this  art  of  writing  from  the  Phoenicians, 
whose  shrewdness  they  keenly  appreciated,  whose 
fabrics  and  works  in  metal  they  prized  so  much,  and 
who  were  their  rivals  in  trade.  The  historian  He- 
rodotus, about  440  B.C.,  assumes  as  a  matter  of 
course  that  the  art  of  writing  had  been  perfectly 
familiar  to  the  Greeks  for  many  centuries  before  his 
time.  Herodotus  was  not  a  critical  antiquarian  ;  but 
he  knew  Greek  life,  he  had  studied  its  records,  he 
was  an  accomplished  man  and  a  great  traveller :  and 


chap.  I.]  INTRODUCTION.  15 

he  would  scarcely  have  taken  the  very  old  use  of 
writing  for  granted,  as  he  everywhere  does,  if  this  was 
not,  at  least,  the  general  belief  of  well-informed 
Greeks  in  his  time.  Extant  evidence  makes  it  pro- 
bable that  the  Greeks  knew  the  art  of  writing  before 
the  forms  of  the  language  had  been  fixed  as  we  find 
them  in  the  oldest  literature.  We  have,  however,  no 
definite  allusion  to,  or  example  of,  writing  in  Greece 
that  can  be  put  earlier  than  about  700  B.C. 

16.  It  was  only  very  slowly  that  a  reading  public 
came  into  existence.  Priests  and  poets  were  the  first 
who  made  much  use  of  the  art  of  writing.  The  temple 
at  Delphi  was  probably  one  of  its  earliest  centres.  At 
Athens,  in  the  time  of  the  Peloponnesian  War  (431 — 
404  B.C.),  there  were  book-shops  in  the  market-place 
(the  quarter  was  called  the  'book-mart'),  and  there 
was  an  export  trade  in  books.  As  the  manuscripts 
were  copied  by  slaves,  whose  labour  cost  little,  these 
written  rolls  were  tolerably  cheap.  The  temples,  and 
a  few  students  or  great  men,  possessed  large  collec- 
tions of  volumes'.     But    the   first   public   library   of 

1  Among  the  oldest  Greek  manuscripts  now  extant  are  some 
Egyptian  papyri,  part  of  them  as  old  perhaps  as  160  B.C.,  in- 
cluding fragments  of  Homer's  Iliad  and  of  the  orator  Hype- 
reides,  and  some  rolls  from  Heiculaneum  (a  town  which  was 
destroyed  in  79  A.D.),  containing  writings  of  the  Epicurean  phi- 
losopher Philodemus,  a  contemporary  of  Cicero.  A  parchment 
at  Milan,  with  fragments  of  the  Iliad,  is  of  the  4th  or  5th  cen- 
tury A.  r>.  The  'Sinaitic'  ms.  of  the  New  Testament  is  of  the 
5U1  century  or  earlier:  the  Vatican  ms.  is  of  the  4th.  With 
these  and  one  or  two  more  exceptions,  we  have  no  Greek  manu- 
script older  than  the  9th  century  A.  D.  A  few  of  the  best,  such  a ; 
the  Venice  ms.  of  the  Iliad  and  the  Paris  ms.  of  Demosthenes, 
belong  to  the  10th  century ;  or,  as  the  Florentine  ms.  of  Aeschylus 
and  Sophocles,  and  the  Ravenna  ms.  of  Aristophanes,  to  the 
nth  century.  From  the  12th  century  onwards  the  mss.  are  more 
abundant.  The  first  book  printed  in  Greek  type  was  the  Greek 
grammar  of  Constantine  Lascaris  (Milan,  1476):  the  first  Greek 
author,  Aesop's  Fables(Milan,  1479).  Homer's  Iliad  and  Odyssey 
were  first  printed  at  Florence  in  1488.  By  1550  most  of  the  Greek 
classics  had  been  printed,  chiefly  by  the  Aldi  at  Venice,  Junta 
at  Florence,  and  Stephanus  at  Paris. 


1 6  GREEK  LITERATURE.  [parti. 

Greek  books  was  that  founded  by  Ptolemy  I.  (306 — 
285  B.C.)  at  Alexandria. 

17.  The  Greek  Poetry  before  Homer  — 
at  first  religious. — Greek  literature  begins,  for 
us,  with  the  two  Homeric  poems,  the  Iliad  and  the 
Odyssey.  But  these  are  not  at  all  like  the  simple 
ballad-poetry  of  other  countries.  They  are  works  of 
highly  finished  art,  which  could  not  possibly  have 
been  produced  until  the  poetical  art  had  been  prac- 
tised for  a  long  time.  We  have  no  remains,  however, 
of  Greek  poetry  before  Homer.  We  can  only  make 
out  some  of  the  general  forms  that  it  must  have 
taken.  It  is  as  if  English  literature  began  suddenly 
in  the  fourteenth  century  with  Chaucer,  and  nothing 
was  known  of  Beowulf  or  Csedmon  or  the  old  re- 
ligious poetry  except  from  a  few  bare  names.  The 
most  certain  fact  about  the  earliest  Greek  poetry  is 
that  it  was  closely  connected  with  Greek  religion. 

18.  There  was  a  time  when  our  far-off  ancestors, 
the  forefathers  of  Persians  and  Hindoos,  Greeks  and 
Italians,  Celts  and  Teutons  and  Slavs,  lived  together 
in  Central  Asia,  and  worshipped  the  visible  agencies 
or  forms  of  Nature,  such  as  the  Sun,  the  Dawn,  the 
Earth.  Then  they  came  to  think  of  these  powers  as 
persons,  with  human  bodies  and  minds.  The  Sun 
became  a  god  who  drives  his  fiery  chariot  through 
the  heavens;  the  Dawn,  a  goddess  who  lays  a  rosy 
finger  on  the  gloom;  Earth  came  to  be  called  the 
Mother  of  the  gods.  But  this  change  did  not  come 
all  at  once.  There  was  a  time  when  they  had  begun 
to  speak  of  the  natural  powers  as  persons,  and  yet 
had  not  forgotten  that  they  were  really  natural  powers, 
and  that  the  personal  names  were  merely  signs.  There 
are  traces  of  this  phase  in  the  Vedas,  or  sacred 
Hymns  of  the  Indian  Brahmans,  which  are  older  than 
the  Homeric  poems,  and  nearer  to  the  spirit  of  the 
ancient  religion  as  it  existed  before  Greeks  and  In- 
dians had  parted  from  the  common  stock  in  Central 


chap.  I.]  INTRODUCTION.  17 

Asia.  We  have  a  trace  of  the  same  stage,  probably, 
in  some  old  Greek  songs,  hardly  known  to  us  save  by 
name — such  as  the  song  of  Linus,  of  Ialemus,  oiHylas. 
Such  songs  were  usually  laments  for  a  beautiful  youth, 
who  had  met  with  a  violent  death.  Linus  (the 
Argives  said)  was  a  boy  sprung  from  gods,  who  grew 
up  among  the  sheep-folds,  and  whom  dogs  tore  to 
pieces.  Thus  men  mourned  the  young  loveliness  of 
spring,  slain  by  the  fierce  dog-star  Sirius. 

19.  Hymns  to  the  gods. — The  Greeks  were 
distinguished  by  their  sense  of  beautiful  form,  and 
especially  of  beauty  in  the  human  form.  When  they 
had  parted  from  their  kinsmen  in  Asia,  they  gradually 
defined  their  gods  in  the  clear  image  of  beautiful  men 
and  women.  They  could  not  have  rested  content 
with  the  shadowy  or  monstrous  shapes  of  the  Indian 
deities.  And  they  said  that  these  gods  or  goddesses 
in  human  form  lived  on  the  top  of  Mount  Olympus, 
a  high  mountain  with  snowy  peaks  in  the  north  of 
Thessaly.  Bards  made  Hymns  in  honour  of  one  or 
another  deity,  weaving  into  them,  probably,  old  alle- 
gories or  mystic  lore  which  the  Greeks  had  brought 
with  them  from  Asia.  One  of  the  deities  thus 
honoured  was  Apollo,  the  god  of  brightness  and 
purity,  the  lord  of  music,  the  giver  of  prophecy,  and  the 
healer.  To  him  especially  men  sang  paeans  or  Songs  of 
Health,  when  they  asked  him  to  help  them,  or  praised 
him  for  help  given.  Another  was  Demeter,  Earth 
the  Mother,  the  giver  of  grain;  the  hymns  to  her 
praised  her  bounty,  or  spoke  of  her  sorrow  as  she 
sought  her  daughter  Persephone  who  had  been  taken 
to  the  dark  underworld,  or  her  joy  when  she  found 
her  again.  Dionysus  was  the  god  of  wine,  of  frolic 
and  revelry,  and  of  every  physical  rapture  which 
lifts  up  the  spirit  of  man.  Both  Dionysus  and 
Demeter  were  also  associated,  in  the  mystic  doc- 
trine, with  the  idea  of  a  life  after  death.  Cybele 
was  the  name  given  by  the  Phrygians  of  Asia  Minor 


i8  •  GREEK  LITERATURE.  [parti. 

to  the  'Mother  of  the  gods;'  she  was  worshipped, 
with  clashing  of  cymbals  and  the  music  of  the  flute, 
and  wild  dances,  by  priests  called  Corybantes. 

20.  Legendary  bards. — The  earliest  poet,  in 
Greek  legend,  is  Orpheus.  The  name  of  this 
mythical  person  is  the  Greek  form  of  the  Indian 
Ribhu.  The  Ribhus  figure  in  the  Indian  hymns  as 
great  artificers,  the  first  mortals  who  were  raised  to 
the  gods.  Orpheus,  like  other  early  bards,  is  called 
Thracian.  This  means  that  he  was  connected  with 
the  worship  of  the  Muses,  goddesses  who  preside 
over  poetry.  Their  worship  was  imparted  by  a  people 
called  Thracians  to  the  Greeks  in  Pieria,  a  district  on 
the  N.E.  border  of  Thessaly,  whence  it  spread  south- 
ward to  Parnassus  in  Phocis  and  Helicon  in  Boeotia. 
From  early  times  the  Greeks  connected  Orpheus  with 
mystic  teaching  about  the  origin  of  the  world  and 
the  immortality  of  the  soul,  and  associated  him  with 
the  worship  of  the  god  Dionysus  in  the  underworld. 
Musaeus  ('  servant  of  the  Muses '),  also  '  Thracian,' 
and  sometimes  called  a  disciple  of  Orpheus,  is 
especially  connected  with  the  mystic  worship  of 
Demeter  at  Eleusis  in  Attica.  This  worship  was  said 
to  have  been  founded  by  the  'Thracian'  Eumolpus 
('the  good  chanter'),  whom  the  priestly  family  of  the 
Eumolpidae  claimed  as  their  ancestor.  The  bard 
Thamyras  is  another  of  the  Thracian  group. 

21.  The  first  hymns  to  Apollo  were  said  to  have 
been  made  by  Olen,  a  Lycian,  Chrysothemis,  a 
Cretan,  and  Philammon,  of  Delphi.  Then  we  hear 
also  of  Phrygian  or  Cretan  bards  who  made  hymns  to 
Cybele,  such  as  Olympus  the  pupil  of  Marsyas  (a 
demi-god,  said  to  have  been  vanquished  by  Apollo  in 
a  musical  contest),  and  Hyagnis.  The  age  of  this 
earliest  sacred  poetry  must  have  followed  close  on  the 
migration  of  the  Greeks  from  the  old  common  home 
in  Asia.  When  these  early  hymns  were  made,  some 
of  the  Greeks  were  still  on  their  way  through  Thrace 


chap.  I.]  EPIC  POETRY.  19 

and  Macedonia,  others  were  settling  in  the  Aegean 
islands,  others  were  still  in  Asia.  And  so  we  have 
three  main  streams  of  this  early  poetry,  the  'Thra- 
cian'  or  Northern,  the  Phrygian,  and  the  Cretan. 
22.  The  marriage-hymn.  The  dirge. — The 
Homeric  Iliad  mentions  the  joyous  marriage-hymn, 
sung  as  the  bridegroom  brings  the  bride  home;  and 
the  dirge  or  threnus  for  the  dead.  Now  in  ancient 
India  both  of  these  were  chanted  by  the  priest  as 
part  of  a  solemn  ritual.  And  so  it  must  once  have 
been  with  the  Greeks.  But,  when  the  Iliad  was  com- 
posed, both  marriage-song  and  dirge  had  acquired  a 
free,  popular  form.  Here  we  see  the  early  tendency 
of  the  Greeks  to  divest  song  of  its  character  as 
part  of  a  liturgy,  and  to  make  it  secular,  the 
work  of  the  lay  artist,  for  all  the  people. 


CHAPTER   II. 

EPIC   POETRY. 

The  Homeric  Iliad  and  Odyssey,  940 — 850  B.C.  The  Cyclic 
Poets,  776—550  B.C.  Hesiod,  850 — 800  B.C.  The  Homeric 
Hymns,  776—500  B.C. 

i.     Songs    of    warriors.      The    minstrel. — 

By  the  side  of  the  sacred  hymns,  there  must  very 
early  have  sprung  up  songs  of  warriors  and  brave 
deeds  in  war.  The  Iliad  makes  the  heroes  at  Troy 
sing  such  songs,  and  the  Iliad  and  Odyssey  them- 
selves are  built  up  from  very  old  songs  of  this  kind. 
The  Odyssey  gives  us  a  lively  picture  of  the  minstrel 
(aoidos)  by  whom  such  songs  were  sung  in  the  halls  of 
princes.  A  king  is  going  to  make  a  great  feast,  and 
bids  his  herald,  the  chamberlain  of  his  court,  to  invite 
'the  god-like  singer;  for  to  him  the  god  has  given 


20  GREEK  LITERATURE.  [par*  I. 

song  abundantly,  to  gladden  us.'  So  the  chamberlain 
brings  '  the  welcome  minstrel,  whom  the  Muse  loved 
exceedingly,  and  to  whom  she  gave  both  evil  and 
good  ;  she  took  away  his  eyesight,  but  she  gave  him 
sweet  song ' ;  he  sets  a  chair  for  the  minstrel,  studded 
with  silver  nails,  in  the  midst  of  the  feasters,  firm 
against  a  tall  pillar,  and  hangs  a  clear-toned  harp  on  £ 
peg  just  above  his  head,  and  guides  the  blind  man's 
hands  to  touch  it :  then  he  puts  a  table  beside  him, 
with  food  and  wine.  When  the  banquet  is  over,  the 
minstrel  sings  to  his  harp  '  the  glories  of  men  '.  Such 
a  minstrel  was  not  looked  upon  simply  as  an  artist ; 
he  was  thought  to  be  inspired  by  the  gods.  And  so, 
naturally,  he  had  a  sacred  character.  When  King 
Agamemnon  was  going  away  to  the  war  at  Troy  (the 
story  said)  he  charged  the  minstrel  of  his  house  to 
watch  over  the  honour  of  the  queen  Clytaemnestra : 
and  at  first  the  wicked  Aegisthus  was  baffled,  '  for 
the  lady  was  discreet;  and,  besides,  the  minstrel  was 
present.' 

2.  Epic  Poetry. — These  songs,  sung  to  the 
harp  by  minstrels,  were  the  beginnings  out  of  which 
Epic  Poetry  was  slowly  shaped  by  a  long  series  of 
poets.  '  Epic '  is  from  the  Greek  epos,  '  a  saying '  or 
'word,' — connected,  through  its  root  vep,  with  the 
Latin  vox,  '  voice,'  and  with  the  vi  of  '  invite.'  Epos 
came  to  be  used  especially  of  an  oracle,  since  a  god's 
answer  was  the  most  important  sort  of  '  saying.'  Then, 
as  oracles  came  to  be  given  in  verse,  epos  came  to  mean 
'  a  verse ' :  and  the  plural,  epe,  '  verses,'  could  be  used 
either  of  poetry  generally  or  of  a  single  poem.  Later, 
when  lyric  songs  set  to  music  were  called  mele,  '  things 
sung,'  all  poems  which  were  not  accompanied  by  music, 
but  merely  recited,  were  distinguished  as  epe,  '  spoken 
verses.'  Now  the  chief  kind  of  poetry  which  was  thus 
merely  recited  was,  like  the  Homeric,  narrative  poetry 
in  hexameter  verse.  To  this  kind,  therefore,  the  name 
epe  was  especially  given,  and  it  came   to   be   called 


chap.  II.]  EPIC  POETRY.  21 

Epic  Poetry.  Hexameter  verse  —  called  '  heroic ' 
verse  by  the  Greeks,  because  it  was  used  in  epic  poetry 
which  tells  of  heroes — is  known  to  English  readers 
from  such  poems  as  Longfellow's  Evangeline,  Kings- 
ley's  Andromeda,  Clough's  Bothie.  According  to 
Aristotle,  the  story  of  an  epic  poem  must  be  on  a 
great  and  noble  theme  :  it  must  be  one  in  itself;  and 
it  must  be  complete,  that  is,  it  must  have  a  regular 
development  from  the  beginning  to  the  end.  Epic 
poetry  is  the  only  extant  Greek  poetry  older  than 
about  700  B.C.  In  the  later  days  of  the  literature 
we  meet  with  artificial  or  learned  epics.  But  at 
present  we  have  to  do  with  the  early  or  original  epic 
poetry.  This  is  represented  by  the  Homeric  Iliad 
and  Odyssey ;  the  fragments  of  the  Cyclic  Poets ; 
the  Poems  of  Hesiod  ;  and  the  Homeric  Hymns. 

3.  The  story  of  the  Iliad. — The  Iliad  means 
the  Poem  of  /lion  or  Troy,  a  city  of  Mysia  in  the 
north-west  of  Asia  Minor.  The  subject  of  the  poem 
is  one  chapter  of  events  in  the  ten  years'  siege  of  Troy 
by  the  Greeks.  Paris  (also  called  Alexander),  son  of 
Priam  king  of  Troy,  had  carried  off  Helen,  the  fairest 
of  women,  wife  of  Menelaus,  king  of  Sparta.  Helen  had 
been  wooed  by  many  suitors,  and  her  father  Tyndareus 
had  bound  them  all  by  an  oath  to  join  in  avenging  that 
man  whom  she  should  marry,  if  she  were  taken  from 
him  by  force.  So  Agamemnon,  king  of  Mycenae, 
called  together  these  suitors  and  other  chieftains 
from  all  parts  of  Greece,  and  they  sailed  with  many 
ships  to  besiege  Troy.  For  ten  years  they  besieged 
it  in  vain,  though  the  Trojans  dared  not  come  out 
and  fight  pitched  battles;  for  there  was  a  hero  in 
the  Greek  army  so  terrible  that  not  even  Hector,  the 
greatest  of  the  Trojan  warriors,  could  stand  before 
him.  This  hero  was  Achilles,  whom  the  sea-goddess 
Thetis  had  borne  to  Peleus,  king  of  Phthiotis,  in 
Thessaly.  But  at  last,  in  the  tenth  year  of  the  siege, 
Achilles  suffered   a  grievous  affront   from   the  king 

14* 


22  GREEK  LITERATURE.  [part  i. 

Agamemnon,  who  took  away  from  him  his  prize,  the 
captive  damsel  Briseis.  Then  Achilles  was  angry  and 
said  that  he  would  fight  for  the  Greeks  no  more,  and 
withdrew  from  the  army  to  his  tent  by  the  sea  shore. 

4.  This  is  the  moment  at  which  the  Iliad  begins. 
'Sing,  goddess,  the  wrath  of  Achilles.'  The  Wrath 
of  Achilles — what  it  did,  and  how  at  last  it  was 
turned  away — is  the  central  subject  of  the  Iliad.  But 
this  subject  is  so  treated  as  to  make  a  general  picture 
of  the  whole  siege  during  a  few  days  of  its  tenth 
and  last  year,  when  Troy  was  about  to  fall.  The  first 
result  of  Achilles  refusing  to  fight  was  that  the  Tro- 
jans now  dared  to  come  forth  and  give  battle  to  the 
Greeks.  The  Iliad  is  in  24  books.  The  first  15  of 
these  are  taken  up  with  the  story  of  the  wavering 
strife;  how  victory  leaned  now  this  way,  now  that; 
how  some  Greek  hero  slew  a  Trojan  hero  hand  to 
hand,  or  a  Trojan  slew  a  Greek;  how  the  gods  and 
goddesses  themselves  took  this  or  that  side  in  the 
fray.  But  at  last  the  Greeks  are  hard  pressed.  Then 
Patroclus,  the  friend  of  Achilles,  pleads  with  him:  'O 
dreadful  in  thy  prowess!  What  good  will  any  one 
have  of  thee  in  days  to  come,  unless  thou  turn  away 
foul  ruin  from  the  Greeks?'  Still  Achilles  will  not  fight. 
But  he  lends  his  armour  to  Patroclus,  so  that  his  friend 
may  be  taken  for  him,  and  allows  him  to  lead  forth 
his  followers,  the  Myrmidons.  Patroclus  is  slain  by 
Hector.  Then,  at  last,  Achilles  is  roused.  He  rushes 
to  the  field,  drives  the  Trojans  within  their  walls,  and 
slays  Hector,  the  last  hope  of  Troy,  and  drags  his 
body,  tied  to  his  chariot,  back  to  the  ships.  The 
Iliad  ends  with  king  Priam  coming  to  ask  the  body 
of  his  slain  son  from  Achilles.  'I  have  borne,'  the 
old  man  says,  'what  no  one  on  the  earth  has  ever 
borne — to  lift  to  my  lips  the  hands  of  the  man  who  has 
slain  my  son.'  Achilles  grants  his  prayer,  and  there  is 
a  truce  while  the  people  of  Troy  pay  the  last  rites  to 
Hector.       ~*~ — 


chap,  ii.]  EPIC  POETRY.  23 

5.  The  story  of  the  Odyssey. — The  Odyssey 
means  the  Poem  of  Odysseus  (or,  as  the  Romans 
called  him,  Ulysses),  who  was  the  king  of  the  island 
of  Ithaca,  and  the  cleverest  of  all  the  Greek  princes 
who  fought  against  Troy.  When  Troy  was  taken, 
Odysseus  and  his  followers  sailed  for  Ithaca.  But  on 
their  way  they  were  driven  to  the  land  of  the  Cyclopes,  a 
savage  race  of  one-eyed  giants;  and  here  Odysseus 
put  out  the  eye  of  the  Cyclops  Polyphemus,  after 
that  monster  had  eaten  six  of  the  hero's  comrades. 
Now  Poseidon,  the  god  of  the  sea,  was  the  father  of 
Polyphemus;  and  Poseidon,  in  revenge,  doomed  Odys- 
seus to  wander  far  and  wide  over  the  sea  to  strange 
lands.  When  the  Odyssey  begins,  it  is  ten  years  since  the 
fall  of  Troy,  and  Odysseus  is  still  far  away  from  home 
in  the  island  of  Ogygia,  at  the  centre  of  the  sea.  For 
seven  years  the  nymph  Calypso  ('Concealment'),  who 
loves  him,  has  detained  him  there  against  his  will. 
-Meanwhile  his  wife  Penelope,  in  Ithaca,  has  been 
courted  by  more  than  a  hundred  suitors,  lawless, 
violent  men,  who  feast  riotously  in  the  house  of 
Odysseus,  as  if  it  were  their  own.  She  tried  to  gain 
time  by  pretending  that  she  wished  to  finish  a  fine 
winding-sheet,  which  she  was  weaving,  before  she  made 
her  choice;  and  every  night  she  took  down  what  she 
had  woven  by  day.  But  when  she  had  done  thus  for 
three  years,  the  suitors  found  out  the  trick,  and  be- 
came more  urgent  than  ever.  And  now  Telemachus, 
the  son  of  Odysseus,  is  urged  by  the  friendly  goddess 
Athene  to  go  in  search  of  his  father  to  Pylus,  in  the 
Peloponnesus,  where  he  is  entertained  by  king  Nestor, 
and  then  to  Sparta,  where  he  is  the  guest  of  king 
Menelaus. 

6.  Here  our  story  goes  back  to  Odysseus.  The  god 
Hermes  tells  Calypso  from  Zeus  that  she  must  let  him 
go,  and  she  obeys.  Odysseus  sails  from  her  island  on 
a  sort  of  raft  which  he  has  made  for  himself.  His  old 
enemy,  the  sea-god  Poseidon,  presently  espies  him, 


24  GREEK  LITERATURE.  [parti. 

and  wrecks  his  raft:  but  a  sea-goddess,  Ino,  gives 
him  a  magic  scarf  which  buoys  him  up,  and  he  comes 
safe  to  the  island  of  the  Phaeacians,  a  rich  and  happy 
people  near  to  the  gods  and  famous  as  seamen,  whose 
orchards  bear  fruit  all  the  year  round.  The  king 
Alcinous  entertains  Odysseus,  who  relates  all  his 
strange  adventures;  how  (before  he  came  to  Calypsos 
isle)  he  and  his  companions  visited  the  isle  of  the  en- 
chantress Circe,  who  changed  the  others  into  swine, 
while  he  himself  was  saved  by  a  charmed  herb  called 
moly,  and  persuaded  her  to  restore  his  friends  to  the 
human  form;  how  they  passed  by  the  shore  of  the  sweet- 
singing  Sirens,  and  between  Scylla  and  Charybdis; 
and  how  at  last  all  his  comrades  perished  because  they 
had  slain  the  sacred  oxen  of  the  Sun-god. 

7.  Then  a  Phaeacian  crew  take  Odysseus  back  to 
Ithaca  in  a  ship.  His  faithful  swineherd  Eumaeus 
does  not  know  him,  for  Athene  has  disguised  him  as 
an  old  beggar-man;  but  his  old  dog  Argus  knows  his 
master,  who  has  been  twenty  years  away;  he  wags  his 
tail  and  drops  his  ears  as  the  beggar-man  comes  near, 
and  dies.  Meanwhile  Telemachus  comes  back  from 
his  search.  Athene  reveals  his  father  to  him,  and 
father  and  son  arrange  a  plan  of  vengeance  on  the 
suitors.  Odysseus,  still  disguised,  has  an  audience  of 
Penelope,  pretending  to  bring  news  of  her  husband,  but 
narrowly  escapes  being  discovered  through  his  old  nurse 
Eurycleia  recognising  a  scar  as  she  is  washing  his  feet. 
Penelope,  inspired  by  Athene,  now  says  that  she  will 
wed  that  suitor  who  can  send  an  arrow  from  the  bow 
of  the  hero  Eurytus — an  heirloom  in  the  house — 
through  the  helve-holes  of  twelve  pole-axes  put  one 
behind  another  in  the  hall.  Not  one  of  the  suitors 
can  even  string  the  bow.  But  the  disguised  Odysseus 
bends  it  easily,  and  sends  an  arrow  clean  through  the 
holes.  This  is  the  signal  for  the  slaughter  of  the 
suitors.  Odysseus  showers  his  arrows  on  them,  and 
finally,  helped  by  Telemachus  and  two  trusty  servants, 


chap.  II.]  EPIC  POETRY.  25 

slays  them  all.  Now  at  last  he  reveals  himself  to  his 
wife,  and  tells  her  the  story  of  his  journeys.  The 
24th  book  tells  how  the  god  Hermes  led  the  shades 
of  the  suitors  beneath  the  earth;  how  Odysseus  in 
Ithaca  was  made  known  to  his  father  Laertes ;  how  he 
overcame  the  kinsfolk  of  the  suitors  who  sought  to 
avenge  them;  and  how  he  was  reconciled  to  his  people. 

8.  The  two  heroes. — Achilles  and  Odysseus 
are  two  characters  which  always  had  a  strong  hold 
upon  the  Greek  imagination.  The  Greek  idea  of 
human  perfection  was  a  wise  mind  in  a  beautiful 
body,  good  counsel  joined  to  noble  action.  Noble 
action  is  preeminently  represented  by  Achilles,  good 
counsel  by  Odysseus.  Odysseus  is  brave,  but  he  is 
especially  the  man  of  subtle  intellect  and  ready  re- 
source. It  was  a  grave  fault  of  the  Greeks  that 
they  cared  too  little  whether  that  quickness  of  wit 
which  they  so  much  admired  was  or  was  not  honest. 
It  is  not  strange  that  the  noble  Homeric  conception 
of  Odysseus  should  have  been  lowered  by  later  Greek 
poets,  who,  dwelling  chiefly  on  his  subtlety,  some- 
times made  him  an  unscrupulous  knave,  reckless  of 
everything  except  personal  gain. 

No  such  shadow  ever  fell  on  the  Homeric  Achilles. 
His  irresistible  might  and  splendour  in  war,  his 
stormy  human  passions,  his  fine  sense,  fitting  in  the 
son  of  a  goddess,  for  what  is  soothing  or  strengthen- 
ing in  the  messages  of  the  gods,  his  love  passing  the 
love  of  women,  his  foresight  of  an  early  death,  even 
when  life  was  most  dazzling,  made  him  glow  before 
the  Greek  imagination  with  an  immortal  youth,  as  the 
very  type  of  chivalry  in  their  race.  The  early  am- 
bitions of  Alexander  the  Great  were  fired  by  this 
Homeric  vision  of  Achilles.  Nothing  can  show  better 
how  vividly  the  Homeric  Poems  wrought  in  Greek  life 
and  history  than  to  see  how  real  the  young  Greek 
hero  at  Troy  was  to  the  young  Greek  conqueror  of 
the  East. 


26  GREEK  LITERATURE.  [parti. 

9.  Homeric  Theology. — The  Odyssey  bears 
the  marks  of  a  later  time  than  the  Iliad.  Still,  there 
is  a  general  agreement  between  the  two  poems  in 
the  broad  features  of  the  age  which  they  describe. 
Each  poem  is  a  picture  of  an  heroic  age  on  which  the 
poet  looks  back  as  far-off  in  the  past,  but,  for  his  idea 
of  which  he  draws  in  some  measure  on  his  own  days. 
The  deities  of  the  Iliad  are  colossal  men  and  women, 
stronger  and  fairer  than  mortals,  able  to  work  wonders 
and  to  take  any  form  they  please,  but  not  all-powerful 
or  all-wise,  and  often  immoral.  They  dwell  on  the 
high-crowned  mountain  Olympus,  and  are  called  the 
Olympian  gods.  Zeus,  a  sensual,  passionate,  but 
genial  person  (Jupiter  the  sky),  is  their  chief,  having 
overthrown  the  dynasty  of  his  father  Cronus  (Saturn), 
which  preceded  the  Olympian  dynasty.  Next  to  Zeus 
are  four  great  deities, — Here,  his  queen,  with  whom 
he  quarrels  much;  Apollo;  Athene  (who  represents 
especially  intelligence) ;  and  Poseidon,  god  of  the  sea. 
Other  gods  sometimes  dispute  the  supremacy  of  Zeus, 
and  he  quells  them  by  threats  or  by  force.  The 
gods  act  on  man  chiefly  by  hurting  or  comforting  his 
body  in  some  way,  and  expect  from  him  offerings 
of  savoury  food  and  wine.  In  the  Odyssey  we  find  a 
more  spiritual  conception.  Olympus  has  become  a 
shadowy  far-off  place,  where  the  gods  dwell  apart. 
Zeus  is  now  indisputably  supreme.  The  gods  now  act 
not  only  on  man's  body,  but  also,  and  chiefly,  on  his 
mind  and  heart.  They  also  wander  over  the  earth  in 
disguise,  spying  out  who  are  just  among  men.  The 
Homeric  poems  did  much  towards  establishing  a  fixed 
standard  type  for  each  deity,  and  reconciling  the 
inconsistencies  of  different  local  worships.  But  they 
did  not  create  this  theology,  which  was  far  older. 

10.  Homeric  Morality. — The  Homeric  gods 
punish  a  man  for  disobeying  or  affronting  them  in 
any  way ;  but  they  do  not  always  punish  him  for 
immoral   actions.      Fear  of  the   gods,  then,  though 


chap,  ii.]  EPIC  POETRY.  27 

powerful  as  far  as  it  goes,  would  not  go  very  far 
towards  making  the  Homeric  man  moral.  For  that 
he  needs  a  moral  law,  independent  of  his  religion. 
Among  the  warriors  of  the  Iliad,  such  a  law  is  re- 
presented chiefly  by  what  the  Greeks  call  aidos,  and 
which  is  often  nearly  what  we  call  the  sense  of  honour. 
Along  with,  this,  there  is  another  principle  which 
comes  out  more  clearly  in  the  Odyssey  than  in  the 
Iliad.  This  is  nemesis,  literally  'distribution,'  then, 
that  feeling  which  is  roused  in  the  mind  by  an  unjust 
distribution, — moral  indignation.  A  man  feels  aidos 
for  the  opinion  of  his  neighbours.  He  feels  nemesis 
when  his  own  sense  of  right  is  shocked.  In  the 
Odyssey  we  find  a  riper  moral  sense  than  in  the  Iliad, 
and  a  much  larger  number  of  words  to  express  moral 
distinctions.  The  age  of  reflection  has  begun,  as  the 
bits  of  proverbial  philosophy  in  the  Odyssey  show. 
Homeric  morality  is  high  relatively  to  Homeric  re- 
ligion :  but,  as  a  rule,  the  Homeric  man  recognises 
duties,  not  towards  his  fellow-creatures  as  such,  but 
only  towards  certain  classes  of  them,  who  stand  in  a 
special  relation  to  himself,  as  masters,  or  dependents, 
or  guests,  or  suppliants. 

n.  Homeric  Politics. — The  Homeric  Poems 
give  us  the  earliest  sketch  of  certain  political  prin- 
ciples which  may  be  traced  through  every  branch  of 
the  Indo-European  family  of  nations.  Homeric  poli- 
tical life  has  three  great  elements — King,  Council  and 
Assembly, — the  germs  of  Monarchy,  Aristocracy,  De- 
mocracy. The  Homeric  King  (Basileus)  leads  his 
people  in  war,  he  is  supreme  judge,  and  he  takes  the 
chief  part  in  public  sacrifices  to  the  gods, — but  only  as 
the  head  of  the  family  does  in  a  private  sacrifice  :  the 
king  is  not  a  priest  He  rules  by  divine  right.  The 
gods  have  given  to  his  house  that  sceptre  which  he 
received  from  his  father,  and  which  he  will  hand  on  to 
his  son.  But  his  power  is  limited  in  three  ways. 
First,  he  must  obey  certain  customs  and  traditions  of 


28  GREEK  LITERATURE.  [part  i. 

his  people,  which  form  a  body  of  unwritten  yet  posi- 
tive law  (iliemistes),  and  are  the  basis  on  which  public 
justice  is  administered.  Secondly,  he  must  consult  his 
Council  (Boule)  of  nobles  and  elders.  Thirdly,  his 
proposed  measures  must  have  the  sanction  of  his 
whole  people  in  their  Assembly  (Agora).  The  com- 
moners who  make  up  this  Assembly  cannot  originate 
or  discuss  measures,  they  can  only  vote  Aye  or  No. 
The  saucy  Thersites  in  the  Iliad  attempts  to  make  a 
blustering  speech,  but  sits  down  whimpering  with  a 
red  weal  on  his  back  from  the  staff  of  Odysseus. 
In  the  Odyssey  we  see  the  beginning  of  a  time  when 
the  Assembly  was  beginning  to  play  more  than  this 
passive  part,  and  when,  on  the  other  hand,  the  king's 
successor  was  not  necessarily  his  son  or  heir,  but 
might  be  one  of  the  nobles  who  were  now  more 
nearly  on  a  level  with  him. 

12.  Homeric  Manners  are  the  social  side  of 
Homeric  politics.  The  public  life  is  monarchical. 
The  social  life  is  patriarchal.  As  the  king  cares  for 
his  subjects,  so  the  patriarch  cares  for  his  dependents. 
The  intercourse  of  the  chiefs  is  marked  by  the  courtesy 
of  a  noble  warrior  caste,  strangely  mingled  with  brutal 
ferocity.  Achilles  is  the  model  of  Greek  knighthood. 
His  reception  of  the  king  Priam  is  worthy  of  a  knight. 
Yet  even  then  Achilles  feels  the  wild  beast  within  him  : 
he  dreads  lest,  at  some  rash  word,  his  fury  should 
leap  out,  and  he  should  slay  his  helpless  old  guest. 
A  tie  of  hospitality  (xenia)  or  hereditary  friendship  is 
held  to  exist  between  men  whose  fathers  have  enter- 
tained each  other,  and  this  claim  ensures  a  welcome. 
Hospitality  to  all  wayfarers  is  recognised  as  a  duty, 
since  'strangers  and  beggars  are  sent  by  Zeus';  but  a 
man  who  really  'welcomed  all  comers'  is  named  in 
the  Iliad  as  if  his  virtue  was  memorable.  Women 
have  a  higher  position  and  more  freedom  than  in  the 
later  historical  age  of  Greece.  Polygamy  is  unknown 
among  Greeks,  and  there  are  few  exceptions  to  the 


chap,  ii.]  EPIC  POETRY.  29 

sanctity  of  marriage.  The  home-life  of  King  Alcinous 
and  Queen  Arete  in  the  Odyssey  is  like  a  modern 
picture  of  fireside  happiness,  and  no  image  of  girlhood 
more  noble  or  charming  than  Nausicaa  can  be  found 
in  poetry.  A  touch  in  the  Iliad  shows  real  feeling  for 
the  pathos  of  a  lonely  woman's  life — the  mention  of 
the  '  true-hearted  toiler',  working  all  day  long  '  to  win 
a  scanty  wage  for  her  children '. 

13.  The  amusements  of  a  chief's  country  life  are 
hunting,  farming  or  gardening,  playing  at  games  such 
as  throwing  the  javelin  or  quoit,  or,  after  a  solid  but 
temperate  dinner,  listening  to  the  minstrel's  song. 
The  mistress  of  the  house  weaves  or  embroiders  among 
her  handmaids.  Queen  Arete  had  made  the  robe 
which  Nausicaa  gave  to  Odysseus  :  and  the  princess 
helped  her  mother  in  household  matters,  being  in 
sole  charge  of  the  washing.  Slaves  were  often  of  gentle 
birth  and  nurture,  having  been  taken  in  war  or  kid- 
napped in  childhood ;  the  latter  was  the  case  with 
Eumaeus,  the  trusty  swineherd  of  Odysseus;  and  we 
see  here  how  intimate  might  be  the  confidence  between 
master  and  old  retainer.  The  Iliad  gives  us  some 
bright  glimpses  of  simple,  joyous  life:  the  patriarchal 
chief  standing  silent,  glad  at  heart,  among  his  reapers, 
while  food  is  being  made  ready  under  the  trees ;  the 
troop  of  vintagers  bearing  the  baskets  of  grapes 
with  dance  and  song  from  the  vineyard  ;  the  bridal 
procession,  with  the  marriage  hymn  sounding  and 
the  bridegroom's  friends  dancing  to  flute  and  harp, 
while  the  women  stand  at  their  doors  to  see  it  pass ; 
the  maidens,  with  their  fine  linen  robes  and  fair 
diadems,  the  youths  with  glossy  tunics  and  golden 
swords  slung  by  silver  belts,  dancing  to  the  minstrel's 
music,  while  a  delighted  crowd  looks  on. 

14.  Homeric  Arts  and  Knowledge. — One  test 
of  civilisation  is  the  material  of  which  men  make  their 
implements.  Stone  comes  before  metal.  But  the 
metal  age  itself  has  periods.     In  the  first  period,  men 


30  GREEK  LITERATURE.  [parti. 

use  the  metals  separately,  or  hammer  them  together, 
but  do  not  know  how  to  smelt  or  fuse  or  solder 
them.  The  Homeric  poems  belong  to  the  end  of 
this  first  period.  The  next  step  is  usually  the  smelt- 
ing of  copper  with  tin,  so  as  to  make  bronze.  The 
metals  named  come  thus  in  Homeric  order  of  value: — 
(i)  gold;  (2)  silver;  (3)  tin;  (4)  'cyanus'  (a  dark 
metal,  perhaps  bronze,  hardly  blue  steel);  (5)  iron; 
(6)  copper  (chalcus,  certainly  not  'brass,'  i.e.  copper 
+  zinc) ;  (7)  lead.  Fine  works  in  metal  are  usually  of 
Phoenician  workmanship, — as  armour  (cuirass,  shield, 
helmet), — bowls  and  vases, — ornamental  baskets, — 
clasps,  brooches,  necklaces,  &c.  There  is  no  money. 
A  fine  can  be  paid  in  gold  and  copper;  'two  talents' 
weight  of  gold'  are  once  mentioned  as  a  gift  of  honour ; 
but  oxen  are  the  only  regular  measure  of  value.  A 
mad  bargain  is  to  exchange  armour  worth  100  oxen 
for  armour  worth  9  :  a  precious  daughter  is  one  '  who 
brings  oxen '  (to  her  parents,  in  dower  from  her  suitor). 
There  is  no  certain  allusion  to  writing;  in  Iliad  vn.  172 
the  heroes  scratch  their  marks  on  their  lots,  and  in 
vi.  172  the  'signs'  on  the  'folded  tablet'  need  not 
be  alphabetical.  It  does  not  necessarily  follow  that 
the  poet  could  not  write  himself.  In  the  Odyssey  we 
hear  of  'professional  men' — physicians,  soothsayers, 
minstrels,  heralds,  artificers  in  wood  and  metal. 

15.  The  earth  is  imagined  as  a  sort  of  flat  oval, 
with  the  river  Oceanus  flowing  round  it.  The  poet 
of  the  Iliad  knows  the  coasts  of  Asia  Minor  and 
their  islands,  but  describes  no  scenery  in  Greece 
Proper,  and  knows  the  lands  to  east  and  south 
only  from  hearsay.  The  poet  of  the  Odyssey  had 
probably  never  seen  Ithaca  or  its  neighbouring 
islands,  but  knew  the  Peloponnesus  and  the  eastern 
parts  of  Greece  Proper.  Cyprus  (whence  'copper') 
is  mentioned  in  both  poems.  The  Nile  is  'the 
river  Egypt.'  Egyptian  Thebes  is  the  type  of  a  rich 
and    glorious   place — ranking   with   Orchomenus   in 


chap,  ii.]  EPIC  POETRY.  31 

Boeotia  and  (for  wealth)  with  Delphi.  Its  old  great- 
ness under  Ramses  was  long  past :  Memphis  was  the 
capital  when  these  poets  sang :  but  Thebes  had 
been  embellished  by  Sesonchis,  founder  of  the  22nd 
Egyptian  dynasty,  and  the  fame  of  his  march  into 
Syria  may  have  reached  Ionian  poets  of  930 — 900  B.C. 
Sidon,  capital  and  seaport  of  Phoenicia,  is  famous 
for  embroidery  and  metal  work.  Tyre  is  never  named. 
16.  Homer. — The  Greeks  themselves,  and  all  men 
till  the  end  of  the  last  century,  were  nearly  unanimous 
in  believing  the  Iliad  and  the  Odyssey  to  be  the  work 
of  one  poet,  Homer.  Homer  is  named  in  a  spurious 
fragment  of  Hesiod,  but  the  earliest  authentic  men- 
tion is  in  the  philosopher  and  poet  Xenophanes,  who 
flourished  about  510  B.C.  The  name  Homerus  means 
'fitted  together,'  and  was  the  ordinary  word  for  a 
hostage,  i.  e.  a  pledge  agreed  upon  between  two  parties. 
But  nothing  was  accurately  known  about  his  life  or 
date.  Most  opinions  placed  Homer  either  in  the 
time  when  the  Ionian  colonies  in  Asia  Minor  were 
founded  (about  1044  B.C.),  or  within  a  century  later. 
The  philosopher  Aristotle,  who  wrote  on  Homer,  and 
the  Homeric  critic  Aristarchus,  seem  to  have  put  him 
about  1044  B.C.  The  historian  Herodotus  (440  B.c) 
differing,  probably,  from  most  of  his  own  contempo- 
raries, made  Homer,  along  with  Hesiod,  live  as 
late  as  850  B.C.  According  to  a  Greek  epigram, 
Homer  was  claimed  as  son  by  Smyrna,  Chios, 
Colophon,  Ithaca,  Pylus,  Argos,  Athens.  But  all  the 
best  evidence  connects  Homer  with  Smyrna,  an  ori- 
ginally Aeolian  city  which  afterwards  became  Ionian. 
An  ancient  epithet  for  him  is  Melesigenes,  '  son  of 
Meles',  the  name  of  a  stream  which  flowed  through 
old  Smyrna,  on  the  border  between  Aeolis  and  Ionia. 
This  is  significant  when  we  remember  that  the  Iliad 
is  an  Ionian  poem  on  Aeolian  themes.  The  unknown 
author  of  the  '  Homeric '  Hymn  to  Apollo  of  Delos 
speaks  of  himself  as  a  blind  old  man  living  in  Chios  : 


32  GREEK  LITERATURE.  [parti. 

the  ancients  thought  that  this  Hymn  was  by  Homer, 
and  thus  the  tradition  of  Homer's  blindness  was  per- 
petuated. The  little  island  Ios,  one  of  the  Cyclades, 
claimed  to  have  Homer's  grave.  The  Homeridae, 
'Sons  of  Homer,'  who  claimed  to  be  descendants 
of  the  poet,  lived  in  the  Ionian  island  of  Chios. 
The  art  of  epic  poetry  was  hereditary  in  their  house, 
as  poetry  and  music  and  other  arts  often  were  in 
Greek  families. 

17.  Early  History  of  the  Homeric  Poems. 
— Both  Iliad  and  Odyssey  had  their  first  origin  on  the 
Ionian  coast  of  Asia  Minor,  and  came  thence  to 
Greece  Proper.  The  Spartans  said  that  their  law- 
giver Lycurgus  first  brought  to  Greece  a  complete 
copy  of  the  Poems,  which  he  had  got  from  the  Creo- 
phylidae,  a  family  of  poets  in  Samos.  Athens  was  of 
small  account  when  the  Iliad  was  first  sung  :  the  poem 
mentions  it  only  once,  as  'a  well-built  town,'  and 
the  only  one  of  Athenian  warriors  who  is  mentioned 
by  name  is  quite  obscure.  But  it  was  at  Athens, 
not  at  Sparta,  that  loving  care  for  the  poems  was 
first  shown  in  Greece  Proper.  The  traditions  of  this 
care  refer  to  the  6th  century  B.C.,  and,  connect  them- 
selves with  three  names,  the  lawgiver  Solon,  the 
tyrant  Peisistratus,  and  his  son  Hipparchus1.  Peisis- 
tratus,  in  the  last  period  of  his  rule  (537 — 527  b.  a), 
is  said  to  have  commissioned  some  learned  men, 
of  whom  the  poet  Onomacritus  was  the  chief,  to 
collect  the  poems  of  Homer.  It  is  now  generally 
believed  that  an  Iliad  and  an  Odyssey  already  existed 
in  writing  at  that  time,  but  that  the  text  had  become 
much  deranged,  especially  through  the  practice  of  re- 
citing short  passages  without  regard  to  their  context. 
Besides  these  two  poems,  many  other  epic  poems  or 

1  According  to  a  probable  interpretation  of  the  doubtful  tradi- 
tion, Solon  provided  that  Homeric  recitations  should  follow  an 
authorised  text  (hypoboti);  Hipparchus,  that  they  should  observe 
a  regular  order  \hypolepsis). 


chap,  ii.]  EPIC  POETRY.  33 

fragments  of  the  Ionian  school  went  under  Homer's 
name.  The  great  task,  of  the  commission  was  to 
collect  all  these  '  poems  of  Homer '  into  one  body. 
From  this  general  stock,  they  may  have  supplied 
what  they  thought  wanting  in  the  Iliad  and  Odyssey. 
Their  work  cannot,  in  any  case,  have  been  critical 
in  a  modern  sense.  But  it  can  hardly  be  doubted 
that  some  systematic  attempt  to  preserve  '  the  poems 
of  Homer'  was  made  in  the  reign  of  Peisistratus. 
And  one  fact  is  certain.  In  the  6th  century  B.C. 
reciters  of  '  Homeric  poems'  regularly  competed  for  a 
prize  at  the  greatest  of  Athenian  festivals,  the  Pana- 
thenaea,  held  in  every  fourth  year. 

1 8.  Rhapsodists. — These  reciters  were  called 
rhapsodists.  '  Rhapsodist '  means  literally  '  a  stitcher 
of  songs';  hence  one  who  weaves  a  long,  smoothly- 
flowing  chant,  i.  e.  an  epic  poet,  as  chanting  his  poem 
in  a  flowing  recitative.  The  characters  of  poet  and 
reciter  were  always  united, — first  in  the  early  min- 
strel 3  then  in  the  hereditary  poets,  such  as  the 
Homeridae ;  and  then  in  the  free  guild  of  poets, 
the  rhapsodists,  to  whom  the  name  of  Homeridae 
was  extended.  But  the  early  minstrel  sang  to  the 
harp  :  the  later  '  rhapsodist '  merely  chanted,  with  a 
branch  of  laurel,  the  symbol  of  poetry,  in  his  hand. 
Those  who  tell  how  the  people  in  an  Indian  village 
still  hang  on  the  lips  of  him  who  recites  one  of  the 
great  Indian  epics  help  us  to  imagine  the  passionate 
sympathy,  the  tears,  the  rapture,  with  which  a  Greek 
crowd  heard  it  told  how  the  King  of  Troy  knelt  to 
Achilles  in  his  tent  by  night,  or  how  the  dying  hound 
in  the  court-yard  of  Odysseus  just  lived  to  give  a  feeble 
welcome  to  the  wanderer  whom  no  one  else  knew. 

19.  Study  of  Homer  in  Greece. — The  Homeric 
poems  were  to  the  Greeks  more  than  national  poems 
have  ever  been  to  any  people.  Every  other  people, 
as  it  has  grown  older,  has  turned  away  from  the  poetry 
of  its  youth,  or  has  even  allowed  it  to  perish.     Cicero 


34  GREEK  LITERATURE.  [parti. 

mourns  the  loss  of  the  early  Roman  lays ;  the  English 
ballads  in  Percy's  collection  are  mere  gleanings  of 
a  once  great  harvest ;  Walter  Scott  was  only  in  time 
to  save  relics  from  the  minstrelsy  of  the  Border.  But 
the  Homeric  poems  were  simple  and  strong  enough 
to  be  popular  early,  and  mature  enough  in  art  to 
please  an  age  of  ripe  culture.  Boys  learned  Homer 
by  heart  at  school,  priests  quoted  him  touching  the 
gods,  moralists  went  to  him  for  maxims,  statesmen 
for  arguments,  cities  for  claims  to  territory  or  alliance,, 
noble  houses  for  the  title-deeds  of  their  fame.  From 
about  450  b.c.  'civic'  or  'public'  editions  were 
prepared  by  various  cities  for  their  own  use  at  public 
festivals.  There  was  '  the  edition  of  Massilia,'  '  of 
Chios,'  '  of  Sinope,'  '  of  Argos,'  '  of  Cyprus,'  •  of 
Crete.'  'Private  editions',  the  work  of  individual 
revisers,  were  also  numerous.  The  most  famous  of 
these  was  that  prepared  by  Aristotle  for  his  pupil 
Alexander, — known  as  'the  Edition  of  the  Casket' 
from  the  jewelled  case  in  which  Alexander  is  said 
to  have  carried  it  about  with  him  in  the  East. 

The  learned  study  of  Homer  at  Alexandria  reached 
its  highest  point  in  Aristarchus  (156  b.  c),  whose 
revision  of  the  text  became  the  standard  one,  and  is 
mainly  the  basis  of  our  own.  The  Alexandrian  scholars 
had  no  text  as  old  as  Peisistratus,  and  knew  little 
of  what  his  Commission  had  done ;  they  used  mainly 
the  editions  of  the  cities,  especially  Massilia,  Chios, 
and  Argos.  The  division  of  Iliad  and  Odyssey  into 
24  books  each  is  usually  ascribed  to  Aristarchus,  but 
may  have  been  as  old  as  350  B.C. :  before,  the  poems 
had  been  divided  by  '  rhapsodies '  or  short  cantos  : 
thus  our  Book  1.  of  the  Iliad  contained  two  cantos, 
'  The  Anger '  and  '  The  Plague.'  Aristarchus  founded 
a  school  of  Homeric  criticism  which  continued  pro- 
ductive till  about  200  a.  D.  All  this  work  is  now 
known  only  from  scanty  notices. 

20.     Our   oldest   and   best    manuscript   of  either 


chap.  ii. J  EPIC  POETRY.  35 

poem,  the  Venetus  A  of  the  Iliad,  is  of  the  ioth 
century,  and  was  found  at  Venice  late  in  the  last 
century,  along  with  some  scholia  or  commentaries 
which  are  of  value  as  preserving  remarks  of  Aris- 
tarchus  and  other  Alexandrian  scholars.  Hitherto 
it  had  been  thought  that  the  text  of  Homer  had 
come  down  to  us  from  about  iooo  B.  c.  It  was 
now  seen  that  our  text  was  not  older  than  the  Alex- 
andrian age.  The  first  printed  edition  of  Homer, 
revised  by  the  Byzantine  Demetrius  Chalkondyles 
(b.  1430,  d.  15 10),  was  published  at  Florence  in  1488  : 
the  first  Aldine  Edition  at  Venice  in  1504. 

21.  The  Homeric  Question. — The  belief  that 
Homer  composed  both  Iliad  and  Odyssey  was  unques- 
tioned, until,  about  170  b.  c,  a  grammarian  Hella- 
nicus,  and  one  Xenon,  asserted  that  Homer  was  the 
author  of  the  Iliad  but  not  of  the  Odyssey.  They  and 
their  followers  were  called  the  Separaters  (chori- 
zontes),  because  they  separated  the  Iliad,  in  its  origin, 
from  the  Odyssey.  As  to  their  grounds,  we  only  know 
that  one  of  these  was  the  style,  and  this  implies  lite- 
rary study.  Old  Greece  was  uncritical,  and  believed 
strongly  in  one  author  for  both  poems.  The  mere 
fact  that  a  double  authorship  should  have  been  mooted 
shows  that  there  were  good  grounds  for  a  natural  doubt. 
But  the  doubt  found  little  acceptance.  Aristarchus 
wrote  against  '  the  paradox  of  Xenon,'  and  the  Roman 
Seneca,  writing  •  on  the  shortness  of  life,'  regards  this 
as  a  question  for  which  life  is  too  short. 

Early  in  the  last  century  Vico,  a  Neapolitan  (o.  1668, 
d.  1744),  in  his  '  Principles  of  New  Knowledge,'  main- 
tained that  the  names  of  great  lawgivers  and  poets  of 
the  old  world  are  symbols;  thus  ?  Homer'  is  Greek  Epic 
Poetry ;  '  Homer's  poems '  were  made  by  a  series  of 
poets,  and  not  written  down  at  first ;  and  the  Odyssey 
is  at  least  a  century  younger  than  the  Iliad.  But  Vico 
had  no  proofs.  These  were  first  offered  by  F.  A.  Wolf 
in  his  Prolegomena  (1795)  or  Introduction  to  his  edi- 


36  GREEK  LITERATURE:  [parti. 

tion  of  Homer.  Neither  the  Iliad  nor  the  Odyssey,  he 
says,  was  originally  made  as  one  poem.  Each  has 
been  put  together  from  many  small  unwritten  poems. 
These,  by  different  authors,  had  no  common  plan. 
The  Iliad  and  Odyssey  were  first  framed  from  these, 
and  first  written  down,  by  the  Commission  of  Peisis- 
tratus.  Wolfs  theory — as  throwing  light  on  the  origin 
of  popular  poetry  generally — roused  enthusiasm  in 
Germany,  which  was  then  in  literary  revolt  from  art 
to  nature. 

22.  The  result  of  Homeric  study  since  Wolf  has 
been,  not  to  prove  any  precise  theory,  but  to  gain 
wider  assent  for  certain  propositions  which  narrow  the 
scope  of  the  question. 

The  Iliad  and  the  Odyssey  belong  to  the 
end,  not  to  the  beginning,  of  a  poetical 
epoch.  They  mark  the  highest  point  reached  by  a 
school  of  poetry  in  Ionia,  which  began  by  shaping  the 
rude  war-songs  of  Aeolic  bards  into  short  lays,  and 
gradually  developed  a  style  suited  to  heroic  narrative. 

23.  The  Iliad  has  been  enlarged  and  remodelled, 
by  several  hands,  from  a  shorter  poem,  by  one  poet, 
on  the  Wrath  of  Achilles.  This  original  'Wrath  of 
Achilles,'  probably  composed  about  940  B.C.,  was  not 
merely  a  short  lay,  but  a  poem  on  a  larger  plan,  in 
which  the  central  motive  gave  unity  to  a  varied 
action,  and  which  might  properly  be  called  epic.  It 
may  have  been  only  the  last  and  best  of  a  lost  series 
of  similar  poems.  But  if  it  was  the  first  of  its  kind, 
then  its  author  was  the  founder  of  the  epic  art,  who 
made  the  advance,  not  from  the  primitive  war-song 
to  an  epic  on  a  grand  scale,  but  from  the  lay  to  the 
short  epic.  This  supposition — that  in  the  series  of 
Ionian  poets  there  came  one  poet  of  marked  original 
genius — is  favoured  by  the  fixed  belief  of  old  Greece 
in  a  personal  Homer,  especially  if  '  Homer '  cannot 
be  explained  as  a  symbolical  name1. 

1  Homerus  means  'fitted  together,'  not  'fitting  together';  and 


chap,  ii.]  EPIC  POETRY.  37 

The  Odyssey  is  mainly  the  work  of  one  poet,  who 
was  of  later  date  than  the  author  of  the  '  Wrath ',  and 
who  used  earlier  lays  about  the  return  of  the  heroes 
from  Troy.  It  was  probably  composed  about  890 — 
850  B.C. :  it  has  been  interpolated,  but  not  so  much 
as  the  Iliad,  and  its  original  plan  has  been  little 
altered.  Both  Iliad  and  Odyssey  arose  on  the  Ionian 
coast  or  its  islands,  and  came  thence  to  Greece  Proper : 
though  some  later  additions  to  the  Odyssey  may  be 
native  to  the  Peloponnesus. 

24.  A  family,  such  as  the  Homeridae,  handing  down 
the  poetical  art  from  father  to  son,  may  have  preserved 
the  poems,  as  precious  heirlooms,  by  memory  alone, 
and  tided  them  over  an  age  in  which  writing  was 
not  yet  generally  used  for  literary  purposes.  If,  how- 
ever, the  art  of  writing  was  known  in  Ionia  when  the 
'Wrath  of  Achilles'  was  composed,  then  it  is  con- 
ceivable that  the  earliest  epic  poet  should  have  used 
it,  even  though  a  popular  literary  use  of  writing  may 
not  have  come  in  till  much  later. 

25.  The  •  Cyclic '  Poets. — There  was  a  mass 
of  songs  and  legends  about  Troy  which  the  two 
great  epics  left  untouched.  This  material  was  worked 
up,  between  776  b. c.  and  550  B.C.,  by  a  number 
of  epic  poets  of  the  Ionian  school,  who  aimed  at 
linking  their  poems  with  the  Iliad  and  Odyssey  as 
introductions  or  continuations.  In  later  times,  com- 
pilers of  mythology  used  to  make  abstracts  in  prose 
from  these  epics,  taking  them  in  the  chronological 
order  of  the  events,  so  as  to  make  one  connected 
story.  Such  a  prose  compilation  was  called  an  epic 
cycle  (or  circle),  and  the  compilers  themselves  were 
called  cyclic  writers.  In  modern  times  the  name 
1  cyclic '  has  been  transferred  from  the  prose  com- 
pilers to  the  poets. 

it  is  doubtful  whether  it  can  be  explained  to  mean  'versifier'  or 
'  compiler '. 
15* 


38  GREEK  L1TERA  TURE.  [part  i. 

26.  The  Greek  grammarian  Proclus  (140  a.  d.),  in 
his  '  Literary  Treasury,'  tells  us  the  names  and  subjects 
of  some  epics  belonging  to  the  Trojan  cycle  of 
myths.  (1)  The  Cyprian  Lays,  so  called  from  the 
home  of  their  author,  Stasinus,  related  the  prepara- 
tions for  the  expedition  to  Troy,  and  the  first  nine 
years  of  the  siege,  thus  leading  up  to  the  Iliad. 
(2)  The  Lay  of  Aethiopia,  by  Arctinus  of  Miletus,  was 
so  called  because  the  Aethiopian  prince  Memnon  was 
its  hero,  and  continued  the  Iliad,  telling  how  the 
Amazons  came  to  Troy,  how  Achilles  slew  their  queen 
and  was  himself  slain  by  Paris.  (3)  The  Sack  of  Troy, 
by  the  same  Arctinus,  is  a  supplement  to  the  last. 
(4)  The  Little  Lliad,  by  Lesches  of  Mitylene,  continued 
Homer's  Iliad  down  to  the  fall  of  Troy,  giving  especial 
prominence  to  Ajax  and  Philoctetes.  (5)  The  Home- 
ward Voyages,  by  Agias  of  Troezen,  filled  up  the  in- 
terval of  10  years  between  the  Homeric  Iliad  and 
Odyssey  with  the  adventures  of  various  heroes  imme- 
diately after  the  end  of  the  war.  (6)  The  Lay  of 
Telegonus  (Telegonia),  by  Eugammon  of  Cyrene,  one 
of  the  latest  of  these  epic  poets  (about  566  b.  c),  told 
how  Telegonus,  son  of  the  enchantress  Circe  by 
Odysseus,  was  sent  by  her  to  seek  his  father,  and 
slew  him  in  Ithaca. 

There  was  also  a  Theban  cycle  of  myths,  to 
which  belonged  the  Thebais  (author  unknown),  re- 
lating a  war,  earlier  than  the  Trojan,  between  Argos 
and  Thebes,  and  the  Epigoni  or  '  Descendants,'  telling 
of  its  renewal  by  the  sons  of  the  former  warriors. 
The  latter,  like  the  Cyprian  Lays  and  other  epics, 
was  ascribed  to  Homer  in  the  time  of  Herodotus. 
The  Taking  of  Oechalia  belonged  to  a  circle  of  myths 
about  Heracles.  These  so-called  Cyclic  poems  served 
as  a  mine  of  fable  for  sculptors  and  for  the  Attic 
dramatists. 

27.  Sportive  'Homeric'  pieces. — Some  hu- 
morous trifles  went  under  '  Homer's '  name,  merely 


chap,  ii.]  EPIC  POETRY.  39 

because  they  were  in  the  epic  style  of  Ionia.  Two 
were  celebrated.  Margites  ('  The  Booby ')  was  a  comic 
poem  on  a  silly  jack-of-all-trades,  half  milksop,  half 
coxcomb,  '  who  knew  many  things,  but  knew  them 
all  badly.'  We  have  only  a  few  verses  of  the  piece, 
which  may  have  been  as  old  as  about  700  B.C.,  and 
which  Aristotle  regards  as  the  first  germ  of  comedy. 
The  Battle  of  the  Frogs  and  Mice  {Batrachomyo- 
machid),  of  which  we  have  about  300  lines,  was 
sometimes  ascribed  to  Pigres,  brother  of  Artemisia, 
the  queen  of  Halicarnassus  who  distinguished  herself 
in  Xerxes'  army.  But  it  more  probably  belongs 
to  the  declining  days  of  the  literature,  and  some  put 
it  as  late  as  160  B.C.  It  was  one  of  the  first  and  most 
popular  parodies  in  the  old  world. 

28.  Hesiod. — Besides  Homer,  another  great  poet 
was  named  in  Greek  tradition  as  the  founder  of 
an  epic  school.  This  was  Hesiod.  What  is  known 
of  his  life  is  gathered  chiefly  from  the  poems 
ascribed  to  him.  His  father  Dius  had  come  from 
Cyme,  a  town  of  Aeolis  in  Asia  Minor,  to  the  old 
home  of  the  Aeolians  in  Greece  Proper,  and  had 
settled  on  an  upland  farm  at  the  village  of  Ascra, 
near  Mount  Helicon  in  Boeotia.  Poverty  is  said  to 
have  been  his  reason.  He  found,  perhaps,  that  he 
could  not  make  his  way  in  the  busy  commercial  world 
of  Asia  Minor,  and  resolved  to  retire  to  a  quiet 
farmer's  life  in  the  old  country,  where  at  least  a 
subsistence  was  secure.  Hesiod  grumbles  that  Ascra 
was  'dreary  in  winter,  sultry  in  summer,  good  at 
no  season/  but  he  seems  to  be  unjust  to  the  fertile 
and  well-watered  region.  Here  he  fed  his  father's 
sheep  on  Mount  Helicon,  and  began  his  work  as 
poet.  Later  in  life  he  is  said  to  have  removed  to 
Naupactus  on  the  Gulf  of  Corinth  in  Locris— thus 
passing  from  Aeolian  to  Dorian  surroundings ;  and 
the  Dorian  influence  has  left  traces  in  his  work.  He 
was  murdered  (the  legend  said)  at  Oenoe  in  Locris,  and 


40  GREEK  LITERA  TURE.  [part  i. 

buried  at  Naupactus,  whence  his  remains  were  .trans- 
ferred in  later  times  to  the  Boeotian  Orchomenus. 

His  date  cannot  be  exactly  fixed.  It  is  certain, 
that  he  must  be  later,  by  some  80  or  100  years 
than  that  great  time  of  Ionian  epos  which  is  repre- 
sented by  the  Iliad.  On  the  other  hand,  he  must 
be  considerably  earlier  than  those  poets  of  the  7  th 
century  B.C.  who  stand  in  the « dawning  light  of  his- 
tory. This  seems  clear,  not  only  from  particular  facts, 
but  also  from  the  way  in  which  Hesiod  is  mention- 
ed by  Greek  writers.  Homer  and  Hesiod  are  the 
two  names  that  are  always  joined  by  Greek  tra- 
dition as  representing  the  very  oldest  poetry.  No 
third  name,  which  we  can  connect  with  authentic 
work,  is  so  decisively  thrown  back  by  Greek  belief 
into  a  far  past.  The  best  ancient  and  modern  autho- 
rities are  probably  right  in  placing  Hesiod  about 
850 — 800  B.C. 

29.  The  Homeric  and  Hesiodic  types  of 
Epic  Poetry.  Hesiod  has  told  us  how  he  came  to 
be  a  poet.  He  was  feeding  his  sheep  on  Mount 
Helicon  when  the  Muses  appeared  to  him.  '  House- 
less shepherds ! '  they  cried,  speaking  to  Hesiod  as 
the  representative  shepherd — 'Creatures  of  reproach, 
natures  gross !  We  can  say  many  things  that  are 
false,  though  like  truth;  but  we  know  also,  when 
we  choose,  how  to  utter  true  things?  And  then  they 
commission  Hesiod  to  be  their  spokesman.  This 
strikes  the  keynote  of  Hesiod's  poetry.  Its  task  was 
to  utter  true  things.  The  Homeric  poetry  of  Ionia 
moves  among  visions  of  the  heroic  past,  to  which  the 
poet's  art  gives  an  ideal  glory.  The  Hesiodic  poetry 
of  Boeotia  moves  among  realities.  It  deals  with  the 
tasks  of  daily  life,  with  the  practical  duty  of  man,  and 
with  those  facts  about  gods  and  heroes  which  make 
up  religious  knowledge. 

30.  The  life  out  of  which  Hesiod's  poetry  sprang 
was  very  different   from  that   of  Ionia.     The   daily 


chap,  ii.]  EPIC  POETRY.  41 

routine  of  dwellers  in  Boeotia  was  that  of  a  quiet,  inland 
farming  life ;  it  was  not  varied  by  brisk  commerce 
or  seafaring  adventure,  by  the  bustle  of  an  Ionian 
harbour  when  a  ship  came  in  from  Sidon  or  the  Nile, 
by  the  visits  of  men  wearing  a  strange  garb  and 
speaking  in  broken  Greek  of  the  marvels  of  strange 
lands,  or  listening  while,  amid  an  eager  crowd,  some 
Ionian  minstrel  chanted  in  the  market-place  a  lay 
of  that  great  war  in  which  Achilles  and  Hector  fought. 
The  farmer  in  the  old  country  led  a  life  much  less 
stirring  to  the  imagination.  How  could  he  best  use 
the  winter  and  spring,  so  as  to  earn  his  rest  in  summer 
when  artichokes  ripen  and  the  cicala  sings,  when  fat 
kids  and  temperate  cups  refresh  the  sun-scorched 
toiler  ?  When  should  he  begin  to  reap  his  corn  ? 
How  should  the  axle-tree  of  a  waggon  be  made,  and 
what  is  the  best  wood  for  a  plough-tail  or  a  pole? 
How  are  the  cattle  to  be  kept  fit  for  work?  What 
is  the  best  way  of  drying  grapes  ?  And  last,  not  least, 
what  are  the  lucky  or  unlucky  days  of  the  month 
for  doing  all  these  things  ?  These  were  the  questions 
in  Boeotia. 

31.  But  Hesiod's  poetry  was  not  addressed  merely 
to  rural  labourers  :  it  spoke  to  the  nobles  just  as  much, 
— it  spoke  to  all  men,  setting  forth  the  moral  precepts 
and  the  religious  lore  which  the  poet  thought  most 
important  for  them  to  know.  The  worship  of  Apollo 
at  Delphi  had  already  spread  its  influence  through 
Greece  Proper,  and,  under  the  teaching  of  the  Delphic 
priesthood,  carried  with  it  a  belief  in  the  immortality 
of  the  soul.  This  belief  was  also  inculcated  by  the 
Dorian  priesthoods  of  the  Peloponnesus,  who  traced 
their  mystic  doctrine  from  the  mythical  Melampus, 
a  seer  of  Argos.  One  of  the  chief  points  in  this 
doctrine  was  the  existence  of  daemonic  beings,  inter- 
mediate between  gods  and  men,  and  connecting 
living  men  with  the  dead.  We  see  that  Hesiod's 
poetry  had  some  contact  with  this  Dorian  teaching. 


42  GREEK  LITERATURE.  [parti. 

He  speaks  of  departed  men  of  the  golden  Age  be- 
coming spirits  (daimones),  and  haunting  the  earth, 
invisible,  to  watch  over  justice.  We  see  too,  how, 
in  the  spirit  of  Delphi,  he  regards  the  office  of  the  poet 
as  closely  connected  with  the  office  of  the  prophet, 
and  speaks  as  if  he  had  some  authority  from  the  gods 
to  proclaim  what  men  ought  to  believe  and  do. 

32.  Hesiod's  Works  and  Days. — Hesiod's 
chief  poem  is  called  'Works  and  Days,'  because  it 
treats  of  the  works  which  the  farmer  has  to  do,  and  of 
the  days  which  are  lucky  or  unlucky  for  doing  them. 
The  name  of  didactic  or  teaching  poetry  is  properly 
given  to  poetry  which  puts  the  facts  of  some  art  or 
science  into  verse,  and  surrounds  them  with  beauties 
of  imagination  or  sentiment.  Hesiod's  poem  is  the 
earliest  extant  poem  of  this  sort.  But  we  must  dis- 
tinguish Hesiod's  work  from  that  of  later  'didactic' 
authors  who  chose  verse  instead  of  prose  merely 
because  it  pleased  their  taste,  or  who  merely  put  into 
verse  what  had  already  been  said  in  prose.  In 
Hesiod's  time  there  was  no  prose  literature,  and  if 
he  wanted  to  get  a  public  hearing  for  his  thoughts  he 
was  obliged  to  put  them  into  verse.  His  object  was 
to  supply  a  practical  need.  His  poem  ought  not  to  be 
classed  with  an  exquisite  work  of  literary  art,  such 
as  Virgil's  Georgics,  but  rather  with  such  a  work  as 
that  of  Thomas  Tusser,  a  Suffolk  farmer  in  the  16th 
century,  who  wrote  his  '  Five  Hundred  Points  of 
Good  Husbandry'  in  homely  verse,  to  help  other 
farmers. 

33.  In  the  Works  and  Days  there  are  really  three 
parts,  which  may  once  have  been  distinct — an  intro- 
ductory poem  addressed  to  his  brother  Perses, — then 
the  'Works'  proper, — and  then  the  'Days'  or  Calen- 
dar. Hesiod  and  his  younger  brother  Perses  had 
divided  the  property  left  by  their  father,  but  Perses 
had  got  the  larger  share,  Hesiod  says,  by  bribing 
certain  judges.     Perses  now  lived  in  luxurious  idle- 


chap,  ii.]  EPIC  POETRY.  43 

ness,  and  presently  threatened  Hesiod  with  another 
lawsuit.  Hesiod  reminds  Perses  and  the  corrupt 
judges  that  Justice,  when  wronged  on  earth,  takes 
refuge  with  her  father  Zeus.  Here  we  meet  with  the 
earliest  fable  in  Greek  literature,  the  Hawk  and  the 
Nightingale.  The  hawk  has  the  nightingale  in  his 
clutches,  and  in  answer  to  the  captive's  complaint 
reminds  her  that  '  might  is  right.'  Here,  too,  the  poet 
describes  the  Five  Ages  of  the  world — the  age  of  gold, 
of  silver,  of  bronze,  of  heroes  or  demi-gods  (put  in, 
apparently,  to  make  a  place  for  the  Homeric  heroes) 
— and  of  iron,  in  which  the  poet  himself  has  the  mis- 
fortune to  -live.  From  justice  the  theme  changes  to 
work.  '  Work,  foolish  Perses,  work  the  work  that  the 
gods  have  set  for  men.'  A  man  who  means  to  work 
should  provide  himself  with  a  house,  an  ox  and  house- 
hold stuff,  and  that  speedily,  for  delay  fills  no  gran- 
aries. The  cry  of  the  crane  is  the  signal  for  ploughing  : 
the  master  must  guide  the  plough,  with  many  a  prayer 
to  Zeus  and  Demeter,  while  a  slave  follows  and  covers 
up  the  seed,  'to  give  trouble  to  the  birds.'  Then 
come  the  rules  for  all  the  works  and  seasons  of  the 
farmer's  year, — and  lastly  the  Calendar,  the  list  of 
lucky  or  unlucky  days.  '  Sometimes  a  day  is  a  step- 
mother, sometimes  a  mother ;  therefore  blessed  is  he 
who  knows  them  all,  and  works  his  work  unblamed  by 
the  immortals.' 

34.  The  Theogony  or  Origin  of  the  Gods,  a 
poem  of  1022  lines,  has  come  to  us  in  a  confused  and 
corrupt  state,  but  is  probably  Hesiod's  in  the  main, 
as  the  ancients  generally  held.  The  belief  that  the 
world  was  created  by  a  Supreme  Power,  though  very 
old  and  widely-spread  in  the  East,  was  never  con- 
genial to  the  Greeks.  Their  tendency  was  to  think  of 
the  world,  not  as  made  by  a  Creator,  but  as  born  out 
of  pre-existing  elements.  They  spoke  of  the  gods  as 
'  living  for  ever,'  but  they  did  not  believe  that  the  gods 
had  lived  from  eternity.     So  Hesiod's  Theogony  falls 


44  GREEK  LITERA  TURE.  [part  I. 

into  two  chief  parts.  The  first  part  tells  how  the 
visible  order  of  Nature  arose.  The  second  tells  how 
the  gods  were  born. 

From  Chaos,  a  confused  mass  of  atoms,  come  forth 
Earth,  Tartarus  (Hell),  Eros  (Love),  and  Erebos 
(Night).  Erebos  brings  forth  Aether  (Day).  Earth 
produces  the  Heaven  and  the  Sea.  The  ruling  idea 
of  the  legend  is  that  light  grows  out  of  darkness  and 
form  out  of  formlessness. 

Earth,  and  her  own  offspring  Heaven,  now  become 
the  parents  of  superhuman  beings  in  the  human  form, 
namely  the  elder  gods  and  the  gigantic  Titans. 
Cronus,  one  of  these  elder  gods,  begets  Zeus.  Zeus 
makes  war  on  his  father  Cronus,  who  is  helped  by  the 
Titans,  and  overthrows  him.  Zeus  thus  becomes  king 
of  the  Olympian  gods,  whose  descent  is  next  traced. 
Here  the  original  poem  perhaps  ended.  In  our  text 
the  last  80  lines  commence  a  genealogy  of  Heroes,  sons 
born  by  goddesses  to  men. 

35.  Source  and  Influence  of  the  Theogony. 
— The  poet's  chief  sources  in  the  Theogony  must  have 
been  old  hymns  preserved  in  the  temples,  and  folk- 
lore which  lived  in  the  mouths  of  the  people.  He 
was  not  making  a  new  system  on  an  artistic  plan  of 
his  own.  He  was  simply  trying  to  piece  together 
a  very  old  system  of  which  he  had  found  the  frag- 
ments, and  which  he  did  not  always  understand. 
The  legends  massed  together,  rather  than  blended, 
in  this  poem  carry  us  back  to  days  when  the  Greek 
imagination  was  still  struggling  to  bring  clear  shapes 
out  of  the  grand,  but  wild  and  half  formless,  legends 
of  an  Asiatic  Nature-worship.  Hesiod's  Theogony  was 
always  a  standard  authority  for  Greeks  who  wrote 
or  taught  about  the  gods.  But  it  would  be  mis- 
leading to  compare  its  popular  influence  to  that  of 
the  Sacred  Books  of  India  or  Persia.  The  Greeks 
never  had  anything  really  like  these,  just  as  they 
never  had  a  sacerdotal  caste,  though  there  were  priests 


chap,  ii.]  EPIC  POETRY.  45 

of  local  worships  and  temples.  The  Greek  mind  was 
sometimes  drawn  towards  mystic  doctrine,  but  through 
its  whole  history  it  resisted  the  rule  of  priests. 

36.  The  Shield  of  Heracles,  not  by  Hesiod, 
but  of  later  and  perhaps  composite  authorship,  is  an 
epic  lay  in  480  lines,  and  has  for  its  framework  a  fight 
between  Heracles— son  of  Zeus,  and  the  strongest 
of  mortals — and  Cycnus,  son  of  the  War-god  Ares. 
Cycnus  was  a  robber  who  used  to  plunder  pilgrims 
on  their  way  through  Thessaly  to  the  temple  of  Apollo 
at  Delphi.  This  fight  takes  place  in  the  sacred  pre- 
cinct of  Apollo  at  Pagasae  in  Thessaly.  Heracles 
slays  Cycnus,  but  the  robber's  father,  the  god  Ares, 
escapes  to  Olympus.  The  fight,  however,  is  a  mere 
pretext  for  describing  the  shield  made  for  Heracles 
by  the  god  Hephaestus.  The  description  is  imitated 
from  that  of  the  shield  of  Achilles  in  the  18th  Book 
of  the  Iliad,  but  is  greatly  inferior  to  it.  The  Homeric 
poet  draws  mainly  on  his  own  fancy.  The  Hesiodic 
poet  draws  from  real  works  of  art,  and  dramatises 
them.  Heracles  has  the  armour  of  an  ordinary  warrior; 
but  as  early  as  648  B.C.  the  epic  poet  Peisander  set 
the  example  of  equipping  Heracles  with  the  lion's 
skin,  club,  and  bow1.  Short  epic  pieces  of  this  kind 
were  often  copied  by  the  early  lyric  poets.  This  piece 
belongs  to  the  decline  of  the  Hesiodic  school,  when 
it  was  beginning  to  lose  its  distinctness  from  the 
Ionian  school  of  Homer.  Some  rhapsodist  has  en- 
larged it,  by  prefixing  to  it  56  lines  belonging  to 
another  poem  which  bore  Hesiod's  name — the  Eoiae, 
or  Catalogue  of  Heroic  Women. 

37.  This  poem,  the  Eoiae  (so  called  because  each 

1  An  inscribed  vase,  of  the  date  450 — 400  B.C.,  found  at 
Rhodes,  has  for  one  of  its  subjects  the  slaying  of  Cycnus  by 
Heracles.  Mr  Percy  Gardner  thinks  that  the  artist  of  this  vase 
probably  had  before  him  those  parts  of  the  Hesiodic  poem  which 
describe  the  arming  of  Heracles  and  the  fight,  but  not  that  part 
which  describes  the  shield.  (Journal  of  Philology,  vol.  VII., 
p.  215,  1877.) 


46  GREEK  LITERATURE.  [part  i. 

new  personage  was  introduced  by  the  words  e  hole, 
1  or  such  as  was  she ',)  celebrated  the  heroines  of 
Boeotia  and  Thessaly  from  whose  union  with  gods 
had  sprung  heroes  ;  and  formed  a  fourth  book  to 
the  Catalogue  of  Women,  an  epic  history  of  Dorian 
and  Aeolian  women,  famous  indeed,  but  not  of  that 
half-divine  rank  which  belonged  to  the  'heroines.' 
These  names  of  poems  show  how  the  Hesiodic  school 
was  connected  with  Dorian  Locris,  where  the  position 
of  women  was  peculiarly  high.  Such  poems,  whoever 
wrote  them,  carried  on  Hesiod's  idea — to  gather 
up  the  old  legends,  as  they  lived  on  in  Greece 
Proper — treating  them,  not  as  the  Ionian  poets  did, 
ideally,  but  rather  as  relics  of  a  sacred  history. 
The  Aegimius  celebrated  a  Dorian  king  who  made 
war  against  the  Lapithae,  and  who  was  a  friend  of 
Heracles, — as  was  Ceyx,  king  of  Trachis,  whose 
marriage  was  the  subject  of  another  poem.  These 
two  poems,  and  the  Shield  of  Heracles,  show  us  that 
Heracles,  an  especially  Dorian  hero,  was  a  favourite 
with  the  Hesiodic  poets.  The  titles  of  two  other  lost 
poems — the  Maxims  of  Cheiron,  the  wise  Centaur, 
and  the  Lay  of  Melampus,  a  record  of  prophets  and 
prophetic  lore — bring  out  the  moral  and  mystic  sides 
of  the  school. 

38.  The  point  at  which  the  Homeric  and  the 
Hesiodic  schools  begin  to  meet  is  found,  for  us, 
in  the  Homeric  Hymns.  A  collection  of  thirty- 
three  longer  or  shorter  pieces  in  hexameter  verse  has 
come  down  to  us  with  the  title,  '  Hymns  or  Pre- 
ludes of  Homer  and  the  Homeridae.'  To  the  title 
of  'Hymns'  they  have  no  strict  claim.  They  have 
nothing  to  do  with  the  formal  worship  of  the  gods. 
It  was  usual  for  a  rhapsodist  to  preface  the  recitation 
of  epic  poetry  by  an  address  to  some  god.  If  he  was 
reciting  at  a  festival,  this  prefatory  address  would  be, 
of  course,  to  the  god  of  the  festival.  Or  he  might 
choose  to  honour  some  favourite  local  deity.     Other- 


chap.  ii.J  EPIC  POETRY.  47' 

wise  his  choice  of  'a  deity  was  free.  Pindar  speaks  of 
la  prelude  to  Zeus,'  '■from  which  the  Homerid  bards 
{i.e.  the  rhapsodists)  oft  draw  out  their  linked  song.' 
Our  'Homeric  Hymns'  are  simply  a  collection  of 
such  preludes — some  long,  some  short — to  various 
deities,-  drawn  up,  probably  in  Attica,  for  the  use  of 
rhapsodists.  Two  thirds  of  the  thirty-three  end  with 
a  verse  in  which  the  singer  says  that  now  he  will  pass 
from  the  god  .to  another  theme.  And  two  of  them 
say  expressly  that  this  theme  is  to  be  the  praise  of 
heroes.  One  of  them  (No.  8,  a  short  prayer  to  Ares) 
is  distinct  from  the  rest  in  character  and  tone.  All 
the  rest  are  epic  in  spirit.  Most  of  them  narrate  some 
passage  in  the  life  of  the  deity  addressed.  The  style 
is  that  of  the  Ionian  or  '  Homeric '  school.  But  the 
Boeotian  and  Dorian,  or  '  Hesiodic  '  school,  can  be 
clearly  traced  in  some  places,  as  in  the  Hymn  to  the 
Pythian  Apollo  (No.  1,  from  v.  178  to  the  end),  the 
Hymn  to  Pan  (No.  19),  and  the  address  to  Apollo 
and  the  Muses  (No.  25).  Hardly  two  of  the  whole 
collection,  probably,  are  by  the  same  hand.  Not  one 
of  them  belongs  to  the  best  days  of  Ionian  epic  poetry. 
The  period  from  750  to  500  B.C.  marks  roughly  the 
limits  of  their  origin,  though  the  hymn  to  Hermes 
may  be  later ;  but  few  can  be  older  than  660  u.  c. 

39.  The  Five  Greater  Hymns. — The  first 
'  Hymn '  of  our  collection  is  made  up  of  two  distinct 
preludes  :  one  to  the  Delian  Apollo  (verses  1  to  177); 
and  one  to  the  Pythian  Apollo  (v.  178  to  the  end). 
The  first  tells  us  how  Apollo  was  born  in  Delos  and 
how  his  great  festival  was  established  there.  The 
second  tells  how  Apollo  came  down  from  Olympus  to 
seek  a  shrine  on  earth,  and  after  many  wanderings 
reached  Delphi,  where  his  temple  and  priesthood  were 
founded.  Hermes  (Hymn  11.),  the  young  god  of  guile, 
steals  the  cattle  of  Apollo  from  the  Pierian  hills,  and 
transfers  them  to  his  own  pastures  of  Arcadia.  Aphro- 
dite (Hymn  in.),  the  goddess  of  beauty,  appears  to 
5 


48  GREEK  LITERATURE.  [parti. 

Anchises,  a  young  Trojan  prince,  as  he  watches  his 
flocks  on  Mount  Ida;  and,  before  she  re-ascends  to 
Olympus,  unfolds  the  great  destiny  that  awaits  their 
son  Aeneas.  Demeter  (Hymn  iv.),  in  search  for  Perse- 
phone, whom  Pluto  has  carried  away  to  the  shades, 
visits  Eleusis,  and  there  founds  her  worship,  and  re- 
covers her  daughter. 

40.  The  Ionian  Festival  at  Delos. —  The 
Hymn  to  the  Delian  Apollo  gives  us  a  glimpse  of  the 
bright  morning-time  of  Ionian  song — the  spring  festival 
of  Apollo  at  Delos, — a  sort  of  fair  as  well, — to  which 
Ionians  came  from  the  coast  of  Asia  Minor  and  from 
the  islands  of  the  Aegean.  'There,  in  thy  honour, 
Apollo,  the  long-robed  Ionians  assemble,  with  their 
children  and  their  gracious  dames.  So  often  as  they 
hold  thy  festival,  they  celebrate  thee,  for  thy  joy,  with 
boxing  and  dancing  and  song.  A  man  would  say  that 
they  were  strangers  to  death  and  old  age  evermore, 
who  should  come  on  the  Ionians  thus  gathered; 
for  he  would  see  the  goodliness  of  all  the  people, 
and  would  rejoice  in  his  soul,  beholding  the  men 
and  the  fairly-cinctured  women,  and  their  swift  ships 
and  their  great  wealth ;  and  besides,  that  wonder  of 
which  the  fame  shall  not  perish,  the  maidens  of  Delos, 
handmaidens  of  Apollo  the  Far-Darter.  First  they 
hymn  Apollo,  then  Leto  and  Artemis  delighting  in 
arrows  ;  and  then  they  sing  the  praise  of  heroes  of 
yore  and  of  women,  and  throw  their  spell  over  the 
tribes  of  men.'  But  even,  perhaps,  when  this  song 
was  first  sung,  the  time  had  come  when  Ionian  min- 
strels should  not  sing  only  the  lays  of  the  heroic  past. 
As  men's  life  became  larger  and  more  thoughtful,  as 
freedom  and  knowledge  grew,  these  Ionian  worship- 
pers at  Delos  learned  to  welcome  the  first  tones  of  a 
new  poetry,  busied  with  the  joys  and  sorrows  of  the 
living. 


CHAP,  in.]  ELEGIAC,   IAMBIC,   LYRIC  POETRY.     49 
CHAPTER    III. 

ELEGIAC   AND    IAMBIC   POETRY.       LYRIC   POETRY. 

I.  Elegiac  and  Iambic  Poetry,  700—500  B.  c. :  Callmus  (e.), 
690  B.C.;  Tyrtaeus  (e.),  675  5  Archilochus  (E.  and  I.),  670  ; 
Simonides  of  Amorgus  (I.),  660  5  Mimnermus  (E.),  620  5  Solon 
(e.  and  I.),  594;  Theognis  (E.),  540  ;  Phocylides  (E.),  540; 
Xenophanes  (e.),  510  J  Hipponax  (i.),  540  J  Simonides  of  Ceos 
(E.),  480. 

II.  Lyric  Poetry,  670 — 440  B.C.  i.  Aeolian  School:  Alcaeus, 
Sappho,  610  B.C.  Anacreon,  530-  2.  Dorian  School: 
Alcman,  660  B.C.;  Stesichorus,  620;  Arion,  600  B.C.; 
Ibycus,  540  B.C.  3.  Lyric  Poetry,  Dorian  in  form,  but  na- 
tional in  spirit:  Simonides  of  Ceos,  480  B.C.;  Pindar,  470- 

i.  Rise  of  the  New  Poetry. — Between  750 
and  500  b.c.  a  great  change  passed  over  the  Greek 
world.  Monarchy  gave  place  to  oligarchy,  (the  rule 
of  the  noble  few),  and  this  again,  in  many  places,  to 
a  tyranny, — i.e.  the  unconstitutional  rule  of  one 
man  who  had  seized  supreme  power.  Lastly,  as  the 
tyrannies  were  put  down,  democracies  arose  in  many 
cities,  especially  among  the  Ionians.  These  revolu- 
tions brought  much  strife  with  them ;  men's  minds 
were  moved  and  their  experiences  enlarged.  The 
ordinary  Homeric  man  is  merely  one  of  a  crowd,  who 
is  sometimes  asked  to  say  Yes  or  No.  Now  the 
private  citizen  begins  to  think  and  act  more  inde- 
pendently. He  has  wider  influence,  higher  work, 
finer  pleasures,  more  to  stir  his  mind  and  warm  his 
fancy.  Knowledge  is  widening  its  circle,  the  fine  arts 
are  slowly  ripening,  science  is  struggling  to  its  birth, 
life  is  growing  eager  and  full.  But  as  yet  there  is 
hardly  any  prose  writing.  If  a  man  would  get  a  hear- 
ing for  his  thoughts,  he  must  utter  them  in  verse.  We 
have  seen  how  reflection  has  been  gradually  coming 


5°  GREEK  LITERATURE.  [parti. 

into  poetry.  The  Iliad  has  little  of  it ;  the  Odyssey 
more;  Hesiod  much  more.  And  now,  about  700 
B.C.,  in  this  dawn  of  large  promise,  the  poet  comes 
forward  with  his  first  distinct  attempt  to  interest  other 
people  in  his  own  thoughts  and  feelings.  The  expres- 
sion took  two  forms,  created  almost  at  the  same  time 
— those  of  Elegiac  and  Iambic  poetry. 

2.  Elegiac  metre. — The  word  elegos  is  probably 
not  Greek  by  origin,  but  the  Greek  form  of  a  name 
given  by  the  Carians  and  Lydians  of  Asia  Minor 
to  a  mournful  song  accompanied  by  the  flute.  A 
particular  metre,  being  at  first  used  by  the  Greeks  for 
such  a  song,  may  thence  have  come  to  be  called  the 
elegiac  metre.  This  was  borrowed  from  the  familiar 
and  universal  metre  of  the  earliest  Greek  poetry, — 
the  epic  hexameter.  Take  these  two  hexameters  of 
Clough's  :— 

123  4  5 

O  let  us  ]  try,  Jie  |  answered,  the  |  waters  them  |  selves  will  sup  | 
6 
port  us,  I 

1  *  3.45 

Yea  very  |  ripples   and  |  waves  will  |  form  to   a  |  boat  under  | 
6 
neath  us. 

In  the  second  line,  omit  will  from  the  3rd  place  and 
us  from  the  6th.  It  has  now  been  turned  from  an 
hexameter,  or  '  six-metre'  verse,  into  a  pentameter,  or 
'five-metre'  verse,  since  the  two  odd  syllables,  '  waves' 
and  'neath',  count  together  as  one  metre.  And  the 
two  lines  together  now  form  an  elegiac  couplet.  A 
poem  composed  of  such  couplets  is  an  elegiac  poem. 

3.  Character  of  Elegiac  Poetry. — 'Elegy,' 
Coleridge  says,  '  is  the  form  of  poetry  natural  to  the 
reflective  mind ;'  and  it  may  treat  of  any  subject,  he 
adds,  if  it  does  so  with  reference  to  the  poet  him- 
self. Greek  elegy  exemplifies  this.  It  deals  with  the 
greatest  variety  of  subjects, — the  wars  which  the  poet's 
city  is  waging, — the  political  feuds  among  the  citizens, 


chap,  in.]  ELEGIAC,  IAMBIC,   LYRIC  POETRY.     5  I 

— the  laws  or  principles  which  the  poet  wishes  them 
to  adopt, — his  own  opinions  on  the  manners  or  morals 
of  the  day, — his  views  as  to  the  best  way  of  enjoying 
life, — festive  pleasure, — lamentation  for  the  dead, — 
everything  that  the  poet  and  his  friends  are  wont  to 
think  or  talk  of.  But,  whatever  the  subject  may  be, 
this  early  Greek  Elegy  has  always  two  general  charac- 
teristics. It  is  the  expression  of  the  poet's  own 
thoughts  or  feelings,  addressed  to  a  sympathising 
society.  And  this  expression,  though  free  and  full, 
though  animated  or  earnest,  stops  short  of  being  pas- 
sionate. The  later  Greek  poets  of  the  Alexandrian 
age  wrote  elaborate  love-elegies  of  a  languishing  kind, 
or  made  elegy  a  vehicle  for  the  display  of  learning. 
The  Roman  elegiac  poets  imitated  chiefly  this  Alex- 
andrian type,  and,  with  all  their  beauty,  have  little 
of  the  fresh,  simple  animation  or  pathos  that  belonged 
to  the  elegiac  poetry  of  early  Greece. 

4.  The  flute-accompaniment  was  an  essential  part 
of  early  Greek  elegies,  which  were  sung  after  dinner 
among  friends,  and  had  a  social,  almost  confidential, 
and  often  convivial  character.  This  soft  music  of  the 
Lydian  flute  must  be  distinguished  from  those  wild, 
stirring  strains  of  the  Phrygian  flute  which  belonged 
to  the  worship  of  Cybele.  The  connexion  with  the 
flute  points  to  the  non-Greek  origin  of  Elegy  The 
musical  instruments  specially  developed  by  the  Greeks 
themselves  were  string-instruments  ;  wind-instruments, 
such  as  the  flute,  came  to  them  from  their  neighbours 
in  Asia. 

5.  Iambic  Poetry. — '  Iambus'  (vj  — )  is  probably 
a  Greek  word,  from  iapto,  '  to  dart  or  shoot,'  hence  '  a 
taunt  or  gibe,'  because  the  light,  smart  iambic  metre 
was  first  used  in  the  raillery  which  entered  into  the 
worship  of  Demeter,  as  into  a  modern  carnival.  The 
story,  invented  to  explain  this  usage,  was  that,  when 
Demeter  was  plunged  in  grief  for  the  loss  of  her 
daughter,  the  first  smile  was  drawn  from  her  by  the 


52  GREEK  LITERATURE.  [parti, 

jests  of  the  maiden  Iambe.  The  commonest  form  of 
the  iambic  metre  was  the  verse  of  six  iambic  feet 
or  three  iambic  metres  (hence  'iambic  trimeter')  in 
which  the  dialogue  of  Attic  tragedy  was  written. 
Shakspere  often  uses  it  in  rapid  dialogue  or  retort ; 
here  is  an  iambic  trimeter : — 

Then  let's  |  make  haste  |  away,  ||  and  look  |  unto  |  the  main. 

This  metre,  at  first  used  for  satire,  was  fitted  to 
express  any  pointed  thought.  Thus  it  was  used  for 
fables,  and  for  reflection  of  a  graver,  keener  sort 
than  suited  elegy.  It  was  the  form  in  which  the 
more  original  and  intense  spirits  loved  to  utter  their 
scorn  or  their  deeper  thought  and  emotion.  The 
elegiac  and  early  iambic  poetry,  both  Ionian,  may  be 
considered  as  forming  together  a  single  stage  in  the 
growth  of  the  literature,  between  the  epic  and  the 
lyric 

6.  Callinus  of  Ephesus,  about  690  B.C.,  is  the 
earliest  of  the  Greek  Elegists.  During  the  reign  of 
Ardys,  King  of  Lydia,  the  Cimmerians,  a  fierce  tribe 
of  northern  Europe,  broke  into  Asia  Minor,  took 
Sardis,  and  invaded  Ionia.  Another  horde,  the 
Treres,  followed  them,  but  were  driven  back.  The 
Cimmerians,  however,  long  vexed  Ionia ;  and  the 
verses  of  Callinus  which  remain  are  a  spirited  appeal 
to  the  Ionians  to  rise  against  the  invaders.  The  music 
of  the  flute,  martial  as  well  as  funereal,  easily  lent  itself 
to  warlike  elegy. 

7.  Tyrtaeus  lived  in  the  days  of  the  Second 
Messenian  War  (685 — 668  B.C.),  and  was  an  Ionian, 
if  not  actually  a  native  of  Attica,  who  migrated  to 
Lacedaemon.  In  a  poem  called  Good  Government 
(Eunomia)  he  sought  to  allay  a  sedition  among  the 
Spartans —those  whose  estates  had  been  ravaged  in 
the  war  were  clamouring  for  a  new  distribution  of 
lands — by  reminding  them  that  the  Spartan  laws  have 
been  founded  by  Apollo  himself.     The  two  Kings,  the 


.chap,  in.]  ELEGIAC,   IAMBIC,   LYRIC  POETRY.    53 

Elders  and  the  Commons  together  form  a  body  to 
which  each  member  owes  loyalty.  In  a  series  of 
stirring  elegiac  lays,  called  his  Exhortations,  he  urged 
the  Spartans  to  fight  to  the  death  against  the  Mes- 
senians.  In  after-days  the  Spartans  used  to  recite 
these  Spartan  songs  of  an  Ionian  bard  at  the  evening 
camp-meaL  Tyrtaeus  wrote  marching-songs  too,  which 
the  Spartans  sang  as  they  went  into  battle — not 
elegiac,  but  in  an  anapaestic  metre  {y  ^  — ) :  one  of 
them  begins, 

To  the  fy-ont,  \  ye  brave  sdns  \  of  Sparta. 

8.  Archilochus  (670  b.c),  an  Ionian  of  the  isle 
of  Paros,  who  migrated  to  the  isle  of  Thasos  with  a 
colony,  was  a  vigorous  genius,  whom  the  Greeks  of 
the  classical  age  even  ranked  with  Homer  and  Pindar 
and  Sophocles  as  one  of  the  great  original  forces  in 
their  literature.  The  islanders  of  Thasos  were  often 
at  war  with  the  Thracians  of  the  mainland,  and  Archi- 
lochus, a  warrior  himself,  sang  of  war  in  his  elegies. 
He  turned  elegy  also  to  the  mourning  for  the  dead,  in 
a  beautiful  poem  on  his  sister's  husband,  who  was 
drowned  at  sea.  But  his  native  power  came  out  most 
in  the  mastery  which  he  showed  over  iambic  poetry, 
first  made  famous  by  his  skill.  The  story  that  his 
iambic  satire  drove  Neobule  and  her  sisters  to  suicide 
(the  father  Lycambes  had  promised  Neobule  in  mar- 
riage to  Archilochus,  and  had  broken  his  word)  may 
be  a  myth,  but  assuredly  it  expresses  the  terrible 
power  of  this  new  scourge,  public  satire,  over  the  hot 
Ionian  blood.  Simonides  of  Amorgus  (660  b.c.) 
carried  on  the  satiric  use  of  iambic  poetry,  but  in  a 
general,  rather  than  a  personal,  form.  The  longest  frag- 
ment is  a  quaint  satire  on  the  female  sex,  in  which  it  is 
said  that  the  gods  have  made  women  after  the  natures 
of  various  animals — the  fox,  the  cat,  and  so  forth. 

9.  Mimnermus  (620  b.c.)  of  Smyrna  makes  his 
elegiac  poetry  a  true  mirror  of  soft,  degenerate  Ionia. 

16* 


54  GREEK  LITERA  TURE.  [part  i. 

He  looks  back  sorrowfully  to  the  old  days  when  the 
men  of  Smyrna  drove  back  the  Lydians :  but  he 
acquiesces.  Life,  he  says,  is  worthless  when  its  prime  is 
over  :  '  may  the  doom  of  death  overtake  me,  free  from 
disease  and  care, — at  sixty.'  He  pities  the  very  sun  for 
his  daily  labour  in  lighting  the  world. 

Solon  (594  b.c),  the  great  lawgiver,  used  elegy 
more  in  the  manner  of  Callinus  or  Tyrtaeus.  In 
his  early  manhood,  his  stirring  verses  moved  the 
Athenians  to  win  back  Salamis  from  the  Megarians. 
And  when  he  had  carried  his  great  reforms,  elegy 
became  the  voice  of  his  calm  joy.  '  I  gave  the  com- 
mon folk  as  much  strength  as  is  enough,  neither 
less  nor  more  than  their  due  meed;  but  as  to  those 
who  had  rule,  and  the  splendour  of  wealth,  to  them 
also  I  gave  counsel,  even  that  they  should  not  up- 
hold cruelty.  I  took  my  stand,  I  spread  my  strong 
shield  over  both,  and  suffered  neither  to  prevail  by 
wrong.'  Solon  raised  the  dignity  of  Elegy  by  thus 
confiding  to  it  his  great  political  deeds ;  and  he  made 
it  also  the  vehicle  of  moral  teaching.  His  use  of 
iambic  poetry  shows  the  old  tradition,  for  in  it  he 
brings  out  the  controversial  side  of  his  public  life. 

10.  Theognis  (540  b.c),  a  Dorian  noble  of 
Megara,  has  left  us  about  1400  elegiac  verses  in  the 
Ionic  dialect — much  more  than  we  have  from  any 
early  Greek  elegist — in  which  he  seeks  to  impress  the 
orthodox  doctrines  of  the  Dorian  aristocracy  on  a 
young  Megarian  noble  named  Cyrnus,  and  puts  in 
many  quaint  bits  of  worldly  wisdom  by  the  way.  His 
tone,  and  the  respectability  of  his  views,  made  him 
a  standard  author  in  Attic  schools,  and  his  text  has 
been  much  confused  by  additions.  He  was  driven 
out  of  Megara  by  a  democratic  revolution,  and  visited 
the  vine-clad  lowlands  of  Euboea,  and  then  Sicily — 
returning  to  Megara  at  last,  for  he  seems  to  have  been 
there  shortly  before  the  Persian  Wars.  He  speaks  re- 
gretfully of  a  time  when  the  common  folk  of  Megara 


chap,  in.]  ELEGIAC,    IAMBIC,  LYRIC  POETRY.     55 

were  clad  in  goatskins,  and  were  as  shy  of  the  city  as 
deer — keeping  to  the  hills  or  the  seashore.  The 
nobles  are  the  good,  the  people  are  '  poor  creatures'. 
'  Money,'  he  says,  '  mixes  race ' ;  but  such  marriages 
are  the  bane  of  the  city.  Conservative  Attic  fathers 
liked  his  politics ;  and  his  wise  sayings  were  so  well 
known  that  it  became  a  proverb,  I  knew  that  before 
Theognis  was  born. 

11.  Phbcylides  of  Miletus  (540  b.  c.)  was  another 
moralising  elegist,  whose  short  pithy  precepts  were 
very  popular  in  Greece.  He  also  wrote  hexameters, 
of  which  we  have  a  few;  but  the  poem  in  230  verses, 
entitled  '  Maxims,'  under  his  name,  is  probably  by 
an  Alexandrian  Jew  of  the  first  century  a.d.  Xeno- 
phanes  of  Colophon  (510  b.  c),  founder  of  the 
Eleatic  philosophy,  made  elegy  the  utterance  of  philo- 
sophic thought.  He  blamed  Homer  and  Hesiod  for 
imputing  immoral  acts  to  the  gods,  and  said  that  it 
would  be  better  to  record  good  deeds  that  had  really 
been  done  than  fables  about  Titans  and  Centaurs. 
Poetry  was  the  great  popular  influence  in  early  Greece, 
and  we  often  find  Greek  philosophy  trying  to  correct 
this  influence.  Xenophanes  is  interesting  as  a  poet- 
philosopher  protesting  against  the  vulgar  poetry. 

Simonides  of  Ceos  (480  b.c.)  wrote  beautiful 
elegiac  epitaphs  on  Greeks  who  fell  in  the  Persian 
Wars ;  but  he  was  more  famous  as  a  lyric  poet.  In 
the  Attic  age  (475 — 300  B.C.),  when  dramatic  poetry 
was  foremost,  the  elegiac  was  still  popular  as  an 
easy,  elegant  form  of  composition  which  all  culti- 
vated men  could  use  on  occasion — as  for  inscrip- 
tions, epigrams,  or  short  pieces  meant  for  friends. 
We  hear  of  elegiacs  having  been  written  not  only 
by  all  the  great  Attic  poets,  but  by  the  Attic  masters 
of  prose,  such  as  Thucydides,  Plato,  Aristotle,  De- 
mosthenes. In  the  Alexandrian  age,  sentiment,  court 
flattery,  learning,  all  found  elegiac  expression. 

12.  Hipponax  of  Ephesus  (540  b.c.)  was  driven 


56  GREEK  LITERATURE.  [parti. 

from  his  native  city  and  reduced  to  poverty  by  its 
tyrants,  and  settled  at  Clazomenae.  He  was  an  ugly, 
spiteful  little  man,  and  two  sculptors  of  the  place 
caricatured  him ;  whereupon  he  revenged  himself  in 
bitter  iambic  verses,  composed  in  a  curious  hobbling 
metre,  produced  by  changing  the  last  foot  (y  — )  into 

a  spondee  ( ).     This  metre  became  known  as  the 

'lame 'or  '  limping '  iambic  ('  choliambic' :  'scazon'). 
The  fragments  have  some  interest  as  giving  us 
glimpses  of  the  lower  Ionian  life,  and  some  homely 
words.  Fables  found  a  natural  expression  in  iambic 
verse  —  especially  beast-fables,  which  have  always 
something  of  satire  in  them ;  thus  an  iambic  frag- 
ment of  Archilochus  begins  a  fable  about  an  alli- 
ance between  a  fox  and  an  eagle.  The  Alexandrian 
poet  Callimachus  used  the  '  limping '  iambic  metre 
of  Hipponax,  and  it  was  adopted  also  by  Babrius 
(about  40  a.  d.)  in  his  collection  of  fables. 

13.  .Lyric  Poetry,  in  the  usual  modern  sense, 
is  such  poetry  as  is  capable  by  its  form  of  being  sung 
to  music.  The  Greek  lyric  poetry  was  not  only 
capable  of  being  sung  to  music,  but  was  inseparable 
from  music.  The  poetry  and  the  music  toge- 
ther formed  a  single  work  of  art.  All  the  Greek 
lyric  poets  were  necessarily,  in  some  degree,  musical 
composers.  !  Lyric '  was  not  the  usual  Greek  word. 
The  Greeks  more  commonly  spoke  of  melic  poetry, 
i.e.  poetry  meant  to  be  sung,  as  distinguished  from 
poetry  meant,  like  the  epic,  to  be  recited. 

14.  It  follows  that  Greek  lyric  poetry  could  not 
be  artistic  until  the  art  of  Music  had  been  de- 
veloped. Terpander  (about  660  B.  c.)  is  said  to 
have  made  the  first  great  epoch  in  Greek  music  by 
giving  the  lyre  seven  strings  instead  of  four.  This 
means  the  discovery  of  the  octave;  for,  as  the  8th 
note  only  reproduces  the  1st,  an  instrument  with 
seven  notes  can  express  the  whole  diatonic  scale. 
Henceforth  the  Greeks  distinguished  three   principal 


chap,  in.]  ELEGIAC,  IAMBIC,   LYRIC  POETRY.     57 

modes  or  'harmonies'  with  four  subordinate  modes ; 
the  seven-stringed  instrument  could  be  tuned  to  any 
one  of  these  seven  '  modes.'  The  distinction  between 
the  '  modes  '  corresponded  to  our  distinction  between 
'major'  and  'minor'  keys.  The  difference  of  the 
'  modes '  depended  on  the  place  of  the  semitones  in 
the  octave.  The  Dorian  mode  (a  minor  scale,  as 
we  should  say)  was  thought  appropriate  to  earnest  or 
to  warlike  melodies ;  the  Phrygian  (also  of  a  minor 
character)  to  passion ;  the  Lydian  (a  major  scale) 
to  soft  pathos.  The  Greeks  had  a  subtle  feeling 
for  the  moral  tone  of  the  'modes.'  Plato  would 
admit  the  lofty  Phrygian  and  the  spirited  Dorian 
modes  in  his  ideal  commonwealth,  but  not  the  ener- 
vating Lydian.  The  little  that  is  known  of  Greek 
melody  suggests  that  it  was  simple,  but  not,  to 
our  ears,  especially  pleasing.  It  is  likely  that  they 
knew  some  of  the  main  principles  of  harmony;  but 
their  practice,  at  least,  seems  to  have  been  somewhat 
crude. 

15.  Greek  lyric  poetry  was  not  limited  to  a  small 
circle  by  being  thus  inseparable  from  music,  for 
music  was  a  regular  part  of  a  liberal  edu- 
cation. Boys  at  school  had  lessons  from  the  harpist, 
and  learned  at  least  to  distinguish  the  different '  modes,' 
and  to  be  able  to  play  a  simple  accompaniment.  In 
one  of  the  comedies  of  Aristophanes  it  is  a  joke 
against  the  demagogue  Cleon  that  when  he  was  a 
boy  at  school  he  always  insisted  on  tuning  his  lyre 
on  the  Dorian  scale  (with  a  pun  on  doron,  'a  bribe'), 
and  could  never  learn  any  other,  till  the  music- 
master  lost  all  patience.  Aristotle  insists  on  the  value 
of  this  practical  training  in  music,  not  only  as  a 
discipline  of  taste  and  character,  but  as  preparing 
a  noble  source  of  recreation  for  after  life ;  he  only 
urges  that  a  citizen  must  not  unfit  himself  for  manly 
exercises  in  labouring  to  become  as  skilful  as  a  pro- 
fessional musician. 


58  GREEK  LITERATURE.  [parti. 

i  6.  Aeolian  Lyric  Poetry. — The  Aeolians  of 
Lesbos  were  famous  from  early  times  for  music  and 
lyric  song,  regularly  cultivated  in  their  musical  schools. 
The  old  legend  told  how,  when  the  bard  Orpheus  was 
torn  in  pieces  by  the  bacchants  of  Thrace,  his  head 
and  his  lyre  were  swept  down  the  river  Hebrus  to  the 
sea,  while  song  still  came  from  the  dead  lips,  and  were 
washed  ashore  at  Antissa  in  Lesbos,  where  the  Les- 
bians buried  the  head,  and  hung  up  the  lyre  in  the 
temple  of  Apollo.  Both  the  early  poetry  of  Pieria 
and  the  soft  instrumental  music  of  Lydia  had  in- 
fluenced the  lyric  art  of  Lesbos.  Here  the  fiery 
Aeolian  temperament  was  quickened  by  special  causes. 
In  the  7th  century  b.  c.  Lesbos  was  a  commercial  and 
naval  power.  Party  strife  was  restless  in  the  island. 
The  nobles,  whose  power  was  not  seldom  threatened 
or  overthrown  by  the  commons,  lived  a  life  of  stormy 
excitement,  of  love  and  war,  of  luxury  and  hardship, 
of  haughty  dominion  or  homeless  exile. 

These  changes,  like  sunlight  and  shadow  flitting  over 
a  summer  sea,  were  mirrored  in  their  Lyric  Poetry.  It 
had  a  rapid  flow,  a  gay  careless  grace  often  lit  up  by 
a  sudden  glow  of  passion,  and  a  wonderful  melody. 
But  the  Aeolian  dialect  was  comparatively  meagre 
and  rude  for  the  uses  of  art ;  and  this  prevented 
the  Aeolian  poetry  from  ever  becoming  so  generally 
popular  as  the  Dorian.  The  Aeolian  ode  was  usually 
meant  to  be  sung  by  a  single  voice,  and  was  on  a 
light  and  simple  plan,  suited  to  the  swift  and  burning 
utterance  of  the  poet's  mood. 

17.  Alcaeus,  a  Lesbian  noble  of  Mitylene  (about 
611 — 580  B.C.),  took  an  active  part  in  the  strife  of 
the  Lesbian  nobles  against  the  commons,  as  well  as  in 
a  war  between  Lesbos  and  Athens  for  the  possession  of 
Sigeum  in  the  Troad :  and  he  told  in  his  poetry — 
with  the  same  frankness  as  Archilochus  and  Horace — 
how  he  once  threw  away  his  shield.  About  606  b.  c, 
when   Pittacus  was  made  dictator  of  Lesbos  by  the 


chap,  in.]  ELEGIAC,   IAMBIC,  LYRIC  POETRY.     59 

commons,  Alcaeus  with  his  two  brothers  went  into 
exile,  and  spent  many  years  in  the  East.  He  was 
finally  reconciled  to  the  home  government,  and  died 
in  Lesbos.  He  wrote  hymns  to  the  gods,  political 
songs,  drinking  songs,  songs  of  war  and  love  ;  but 
we  have  only  a  few  fragments  of  his  poetry.  One 
fragment  describes  a  warrior's  hall  hung  round  with 
gleaming,  white-plumed  helmets,  greaves,  cuirasses, 
shields  and  broadswords.  Another  compares  the  Les- 
bian State  to  a  storm-tossed  ship  ;  the  water  is  coming 
in,  the  sail  is  torn,  the  anchor  will  not  hold,  the  waves 
come  this  way  and  that, — the  mariners  are  driven 
before  the  tempest.  This,  like  some  others,  is  in  that 
Alcaic  stanza  which  takes  its  name  from  him,  and 
which  Horace  adopted.  Mr  Tennyson  has  given  a 
specimen  of  it  to  English  readers  : — 

O  mighty-mouthed  inventor  of  harmonies, 
O  skilled  to  sing  of  time  or  eternity, 
God-gifted  organ-voice  of  England, 
Milton,  a  name  to  resound  for  ages. 

In  another  fragment  Alcaeus  bids  his  comrades  for- 
get the  wild  weather  outside  the  warm  room,  heap  logs 
on  the  fire,  mix  the  dark  wine,  and  call  for  garlands 
and  perfumes.  Elsewhere  he  denounces  the  tyrants  of 
Lesbos.  Alcaeus  was  in  some  respects  not  unlike  a 
Royalist  soldier  of  the  age  of  the  Stuarts.  He  had 
the  high  spirit  and  reckless  gaiety,  the  love  of  country 
bound  up  with  belief  in  a  caste,  the  licence  tempered 
by  generosity  and  sometimes  by  tenderness,  of  a  cava- 
lier who  has  seen  good  and  evil  days.  Two  lines 
of  his  remain  to  link  his  name  with  another  not  less 
famous.  '  Chaste  Sappho,  with  thy  dark  tresses  and 
thy  gentle  smile,  fain  would  I  speak,  but  awe  restrains 
me.' 

1 8.  Sappho  (610  B.C.)  was  a  woman  of  sur- 
passing artistic  genius,  exquisitely  sensitive  to  the 
harmonies  of  form  and  sound,  whose  passionate  energy 
found  a  natural  expression  in  poetry,  and  who  uttered 


60    _  GREEK  LITERATURE.  [parti. 

in  poetry  her  worship  of  beauty.  No  Greek  woman 
of  the  Ionian  race  is  known  to  have  excelled  in 
poetry;  and  no  Aeolian  or  Dorian  woman,  except 
Sappho,  is  known  to  have  made  poetry  the  personal 
expression  of  an  intense  life.  She  was  helped  to  do 
this,  not  only  by  the  glow  of  the  Aeolian  blood  that 
fired  her  genius,  but  also  by  the  large  and  rich  life  with 
which  Aeolian  society  surrounded  women  of  the  higher 
rank.  This  is  what  gives  their  unique  interest  to  the 
few  fragments  that  remain  of  her  work,  fragments 
of  incomparable  melody,  with  a  clear  flame  burning 
through  the  musical  words.  She  appears  to  have  been 
the  centre  of  a  poetical  school  or  group,  and  from 
one  of  the  most  celebrated  of  her  disciples,  Erinna, 
some  fragments  remain.  Sappho  is  said  to  have  left 
Mitylene  about  596  b.c,  and  to  have  died  in  Sicily. 
The  story  of  her  hopeless  love  for  Phaon,  and  of  her 
springing  from  the  Leucadian  cliff  into  the  sea,  is 
probably  a  later  fable.  The  Sapphic  stanza  was  only 
one  of  many  metres  used  by  Sappho.  Horace,  in 
adapting  it  for  Latin  use,  has  modified  its  rules,  and 
retains  its  most  characteristic  rhythm  only  in  a  few 
lines,  such  as  Laurea  donandus  Apolllnari.  The  follow- 
ing stanza  preserves  the  genuine  Greek  cadence  : — 

Faded  every  violet,  all  the  roses ; 
Gone  the  glorious  promise,  and  the  victim 
Broken  in  this  anger  of  Aphrodite 
Yields  to  the  victor1. 

19.  Anacreon,  of  Teos,  a  city  on  the  coast  of 
Ionia,  who  flourished  about  530  B.C.,  wrote  in  a 
mainly  Ionian  dialect,  but  is  akin  to  the  Aeolian 
School  in  the  matter  and  the  form  of  his  lyrics.  He 
lived  for  some  time  at  the  brilliant  court  of  Polycrates, 
tyrant  of  Samos;  then  at  Athens  with  Hipparchus, 
son  of  the  tyrant  Peisistratus,  and  afterwards,  it  is  said, 
in  Thessaly  with   the  princely  Aleuadae.      Anacreon 

1  For  this  stanza  the  writer  is  indebted  to  the  kindness  of 
Mr  Tennyson. 


chap.  Hi.]  ELEGIAC,  IAMBIC,   LYRIC  POETRY.     6 1 

was  the  poet  of  pleasure.  His  pliant  Ionian  nature 
fitted  him  for  the  life  of  a  gay  society.  Love,  wine, 
and  music  were  his  joys.  He  seems  to  have  gone 
through  his  long  life  on  easy  terms  with  the  world, 
cherishing  no  ambition  except  that  of  enjoyment,  and 
no  regret  save  for  the  flight  of  youth.  The  few 
genuine  fragments  of  his  work  are  from  hymns,  or 
poems  of  love  and  society;  they  show  a  pure  style, 
light  grace,  sweetness,  and  touches  of  satirical  humour. 
The  collection  of  about  60  short  pieces  under  his  name 
was  first  put  together  in  the  tenth  century.  These 
spurious  Anacreontea  are  probably  all  of  the  Christian 
era,  and  many  as  late  as  500  a.d.  They  have,  on  the 
whole,  little  of  classical  merit ;  the  form  is  somewhat 
wooden,  and  the  fancy  barren ;  but  they  are  often 
as  bright  and  pretty  as  elegant  industry  could  make 
them. 

20.  Dorian  Lyric  Poetry. — Dorian  and  Aeolian 
life  had  this  in  common,  that  both  were  based  on  the 
rule  of  a  warlike  aristocracy.  But  the  Aeolian  State 
was  frequently  shaken  by  fickle  and  fiery  passion :  it 
was  indeed  the  storm-driven  ship  to  which  Alcaeus 
likened  it.  The  Dorian  State  was  anchored  to  the 
steadfast  faith  of  the  Dorian  people  in  their  gods  and 
in  the  usages  handed  down  by  their  fathers.  A  Dorian 
commonwealth  was  a  compact  body  held  together  by 
a  military  discipline,  to  which  each  member  was 
proudly  loyal.  A  stamp  of  severe  symmetry  and 
majesty  belonged  to  the  rites  of  the  Dorian  religion, 
to  the  Dorian  temples  and  statues  and  poems.  Dorian 
Lyric  Poetry  was  the  expression  of  Dorian  life  in  all 
its  public  or  social  energies.  The  Dorian  lyrist,  unlike 
the  Aeolian,  says  little  of  himself.  He  sets  forth  the 
consecrated  tradition  and  the  ancestral  glory  of  the 
Dorian  race  for  Dorians  gathered  at  the  worship  of  the 
gods,  at  the  celebration  of  some  victory  in  the  athletic 
games,  at  a  festival  commemorating  the  foundation  of 
a  city  or  the  great   deeds  of  a  living  king.     In  its 


62  GREEK  LITERATURE.  [parti. 

most  distinctive  forms,  Dorian  Lyric  Poetry  was  meant 
to  be  sung,  not  by  a  single  voice,  but  by  a  chorus. 

21.  It  follows  from  the  nature  of  this  poetry  that 
its  history  does  not  present  to  us  a  single  personality 
so  strongly  marked  as  those  of  the  Aeolian  Alcaeus 
and  Sappho.  We  have  here,  not  vivid  characters,  but 
rather  phases  in  the  development  of  an  art.  Alcman 
of  Sparta  (660  B.C.)  wrote  hymns ;  songs  to  be  sung 
during  processions  to  temples  (prosodia),  especially 
parthenia  to  be  sung  by  maidens;  paeans,  i.e.  songs 
imploring  or  praising  the  health-giving  power  of  the 
gods;  nuptial  chants,  and  love-songs.  He  was  the 
first  who  gave  an  artistic  form  to  the  choral  lyric  by 
arranging  that  the  chorus,  while  singing,  should  execute 
alternately  a  movement  to  the  right  (strophe,  'turning'), 
and  a  movement  to  the  left  {antistrophe) ;  and  he  com- 
posed the  songs  which  the  chorus  was  to  sing  in 
couples  of  stanzas  called  strophe  and  antistrophe, 
answering  to  these  balanced  movements.  His  frag- 
ments have  a  special  interest  as  samples  of  the  Dorian 
dialect  in  its  Laconian  or  Spartan  variety. 

22.  Stesichorus  of  Himera  in  Sicily  (620  b.c.) — 
whose  real  name  was  Tisias,  but  whose  skill  procured 
him  this  name  Stesichorus,  '  marshal  of  choruses,' — 
completed  the  form  of  the  choral  lyric  by  adding  to 
strophe  and  antistrophe  a  third  part,  the  epdde,  sung 
by  the  chorus  while  it  remained  stationary  after  the 
movements  to  right  and  left.  Stesichorus  treated 
epic  subjects,  such  as  the  legends  of  Troy,  in  his 
lyric  poems ;  hence  Horace  speaks  of  his  stately 
muse.  There  was  a  story  current  in  the  old  world 
that  Helen,  now  a  goddess,  struck  this  poet  blind 
because  he  had  sung  evil  of  her,  but  restored  his 
sight  when  he  had  composed  a  recantation  (or  palinode) 
beginning  : — '  This  story  is  not  true ;  thou  didst  not  go 
to  Troy.' 

23.  Arion,  (600  b.c),  though  a  Lesbian  by  birth, 
belongs   by  art   rather    to   the   Dorian   school.     His 


chap,  m.]  ELEGIAC,   IAMBIC,   LYRIC  POETRY.     63 

great  work  was  to  give  the  dithyramb,  or  choral 
hymn  to  Dionysus,  a  finished  choral  form,  by  fixing  the 
number  (50)  of  the  cyclic  or  circular  chorus  that  was 
to  sing  it,  grouped  round  the  altar,  and  by  dividing 
the  singing  and  acting  parts  clearly  from  each  other. 
We  have  a  fragment  by  him,  addressed  to  Poseidon, 
and  telling  of  Poseidon's  servants,  the  dolphins,  who 
had  wafted  the  poet  safely  to  land,  when  he  had  lost 
his  course  at  sea.  A  fable  grew  up  that  certain 
wicked  sailors  had  thrown  Arion  overboard,  and  that 
the  dolphins,  charmed  by  his  songs,  had  saved  him. 
Ibycus,  of  Rhegium  in  South  Italy  (540),  was 
closely  akin  as  a  poet  to  Stesichorus.  His  choral 
hymns  were  on  like  subjects,  about  heroic  wars,  and 
had  the  same  epic  character  of  style.  He  also  wrote 
love-poems.  The  story  went  that  Ibycus  was  mur- 
dered at  sea,  but  that  his  murderers  were  found  out 
through  some  cranes  that  followed  the  ship  ;  and  these 
'  cranes  of  Ibycus '  became  a  proverb  for  the  agency  of 
the  gods  in  revealing  crime. 

24.  In  the  Persian  Wars  the  Greeks  had  for  the 
first  time  to  fight  as  one  people  against  a  foreign  foe. 
The  Greeks  beat  back  the  Persians.  After  this  great 
victory,  Greece  was  safer,  and  the  Greek  cities  every- 
where became  more  prosperous.  One  result  of  the 
Persian  Wars  was  to  make  the  Greeks  in  Sicily  and 
Asia  and  all  over  the  world  feel  that  they  were  one 
people  with  the  same  interests.  Another  result  was 
to  make  Athens  the  most  popular  and  powerful  city 
in  Greece.  The  people  of  Attica  were  the  most  gifted 
of  the  Ionian  race ;  and  the  political  importance  of 
Athens  now  gave  a  large  opening  to  the  Athenian 
genius. 

25.  Simonides,  of  the  Ionian  island  of  Ceos,  was 
born  in  556  B.C.  and  died  in  468 B.C.  He  spent  some 
time  at  Athens  in  the  reign  of  Hipparchus ;  then  he 
visited  Thessaly.  About  478  he  came  to  Athens  again, 
and  finally  he  went  to  the  court  of  Hieron,  tyrant  of 


64  GREEK  LITERATURE.  [parti. 

Syracuse.  His  great  fame  is  connected  with  the  time 
of  the  Persian  Wars,  480 — 478  B.C.  He  writes  his 
lyrics  in  the  Dorian  dialect,  and  belongs,  as  regards 
lyric  form,  to  the  choral  Dorian  school.  But  he  was 
by  birth  an  Ionian,  and  wrote  elegiacs  in  the  Ionic 
dialect.  And  his  highest  renown  is  associated  with  that 
of  Athens.  Thus  in  him  Ionian  genius  and  Dorian  art 
meet  at  Athens,  and  he  marks  a  new  era — the  begin- 
ning of  a  lyric  poetry  addressed  to  all  Greece, 
taking  its  spring  from  Athens,  the  future  centre  of 
Greek  intellectual  life.  His  fragments  represent  hymns 
to  the  gods,  paeans,  odes  on  victors  in  the  games, 
dirges,  and  other  lyric  varieties.  His  elegiac  epitaphs 
on  those  who  fell  at  the  battles  of  Thermopylae  and 
Salamis  are  admirable.  But  nothing  that  remains  of 
his  poetry  is  more  beautiful  than  a  fragment  of  a 
dirge,  describing  Danae  with  her  infant  son  Perseus, 
when  her  father  Acrisius  has  sent  her  adrift  in  an  ark 
on  the  sea;  and  as  darkness  comes  and  the  storm 
arises,  the  child  is  afraid ;  but  Danae  comforts  and 
hushes  him,  and  prays  to  the  gods  that  the  storm  also 
may  slumber. 

26.  Bacchylides,  the  nephew  of  Simonides,  lived, 
like  his  uncle,  at  Hieron's  court,  and  used  the  choral 
lyric  style  with  brilliant  grace  and  finish,  but  in  a 
lower  strain.  His  fragments,  which  are  of  various 
kinds,  often  show  a  certain  enthusiasm  for  the  bright 
pleasures  of  peaceful  life,  and  we  might  even  fancy 
that  we  saw  in  him  a  reaction  from  the  warlike  spirit 
called  forth  by  the  struggle  with  Persia. 

27.  Pindar  was  born,  about  522  B.C.,  at  the 
village  of  Cynoscephalae  near  Thebes  in  Boeotia.  He 
was  of  a  noble  family,  the  Aegidae,  who  had  borne 
a  part  in  the  oldest  wars  of  Sparta.  Thus,  though  he 
grew  up  in  an  Aeolian  land,  he  was  connected  in 
blood  with  the  Dorians.  The  art  of  flute-playing  was 
hereditary  in  his  house;  for,  in  these  great  days  of 
Greece,  a  noble  art,  such  as  music,  was  cherished  by 


chap,  in.]  ELE GIA C,  IAMBIC,    LYRIC  POETRY.     65 

the  noblest  as  the  gift  of  the  gods.  The  story  went 
that  in  his  youth  he  was  defeated  in  a  poetical  com- 
petition by  the  Theban  poetess  Corinna.  Subse- 
quently he  showed  her  a  poem  in  which,  acting  on 
her  own  hint,  he  had  used  Theban  mythology.  But 
he  had  been  too  profuse.  'You  ought  to  sow  with 
the  hand,  not  with  the  sack,'  said  Corinna.  Pindar 
had  lessons  too  from  the  musician  LAsus  of  Hermione. 
He  began  his  poetical  career  at  the  age  of  twenty, 
with  an  ode  on  a  Thessalian  youth's  victory  in  the 
games.  He  grew  to  be  the  national  lyrist  of  Greece. 
It  is  a  sign  of  the  coming  time  that  he  also  pays  his 
homage  to  Athens, — 'the  bulwark  of  Hellas,'  the 
city  that  '  laid  the  foundation  of  freedom.'  He  was 
honoured  by  the  Dorian  princes  of  Sicily — Hieron 
of  Syracuse  and  Theron  of  Acragas — and  visited 
them,  but  declined  to  make  Sicily  his  permanent 
home.  He  was  held  in  veneration  throughout  Greece ; 
and  received  the  distinction  of  being  regularly  invited 
to  the  sacred  banquet  (theoxenia)  given  at  Delphi  to 
the  embassies  who  attended  the  festivals  of  Apollo. 
He  died  at  the  age  of  79,  in  443  B.C.  An  iron  chair 
in  which  he  had  sat  was  preserved  in  the  temple  at 
Delphi.  Two  conquerors  of  Thebes, — the  Spartan 
king  Pausanias  in  the  Peloponnesian  War,  and 
Alexander  the  Great — 

'bade  spare 

The  house  of  Pindarus,  when  temple  and  tower 

Went  to  the  ground.' 

28.  The  remains  of  Pindar's  work  represent  almost 
every  kind  of  lyric  poem.  The  fragments  may  be 
classified  as  follows: — 1.  Hymns  to  Persephone,  to 
Fortune,  and  in  praise  of  Thebes  and  its  gods.  2. 
Paeans  to  Apollo  of  Delphi  and  Zeus  of  Dodona. 
3.  Choral  dithyrambs  to  Dionysus.  4.  Processional 
Songs,  for  the  people  of  Delos  and  of  Aegina.  5. 
Choral  songs  for  maidens ; — one  addressed  to  '  Pan, 
lord  of  Arcadia,   watcher   of  the  awful   shrine '  (of 


66  GREEK  LITER  A  TURE.  [part  i. 

Cybele).  6.  Choral  dance-songs, — '  hyporchemes,'  as  the 
Greeks  called  them,  in  which  the  words  were  accom- 
panied by  a  lively  dance  or  pantomime  expressive  of 
the  action ;  they  arose  from  the  early  Cretan  war- 
dances,  and  were  used  especially  in  the  worship  of 
Apollo,  as  a  relief  to  the  solemn  paean.  One  of  these 
was  written  for  the  Thebans,  and  was  connected  with 
a  propitiatory  rite  following  an  eclipse  of  the  sun, 
probably  in  463  B.C.  7.  Encomia :  laudatory  odes  (in 
praise  of  men,  and  thus  distinguished  from  hymns  in 
praise  of  gods)  sung  by  the  festive  troop  or  comus. 
8.  Scolid :  festive  songs  to  be  sung  at  banquets  by  a 
comus  or  festive  troop.  9.  Dirges,  to  be  sung  to  the 
flute,  with  choral  dance. 

29.  Besides  the  fragments,  we  have  forty-four 
complete  Epinicia,  or  Odes  of  Victory,  in  which 
Pindar  celebrated  victories  in  great  national  games. 
Fourteen  odes  belong  to  the  games  at  Olympia, 
held  once  in  four  years.  The  prize  was  a  wreath 
of  wild  olive.  Twelve  odes  belong  to  the  Pythian 
games,  held  at  Delphi  in  honour  of  Apollo,  once  in 
four  years,  in  the  3rd  year  of  each  Olympiad :  the 
prize  was  a  wreath  of  laurel.  Seven  odes  belong  to 
the  Nemean  games,  held  at  Nemea  in  honour  of 
Zeus,  once  in  two  years,  the  2nd  and  4th  of  each 
Olympiad  :  the  prize  was  a  wreath  of  pine.  Eleven 
odes  belong  to  the  Isthmian  games,  held  at  the 
Isthmus  of  Corinth,  in  honour  of  Poseidon,  once  in 
two  years,  in  the  1st  and  3rd  years  of  each  Olym- 
piad :  the  prize  was  a  wreath  of  parsley.  Among  all 
these  odes  of  which  the  dates  can  be  fixed,  the  earliest 
is  the  10th  Pythian,  in  502  B.C. ;  the  latest,  the 
5th  Olympian,  in  452  b.c.  The  dialect  is  epic  with 
a  strong  Dorian  colouring,  and  a  few  Aeolic  forms. 
The  music  was  of  a  different  character  in  different  odes. 
Where  it  was  Dorian,  the  poetry  is  most  serene  and 
elevated,  and  the  mythical  stories  are  most  fully 
treated :  where  it  was  Aeolian,  the  odes  are  rapid,  free, 


chap,  in.]  ELEGIAC,   IAMBIC,   LYRIC  POETRY.     67 

careless,  gay :  where  it  was  Lydian,  the  poem  has  a 
gentle  or  suppliant  tone,  as  in  approaching  a  temple 
or  altar. 

30.  The  ode  of  victory  was  sometimes  recited  at 
the  place  where  the  games  were  held,  on  the  evening 
of  the  contest ;  as  when  at  Olympia  '  the  lovely  light 
of  the  fair-faced  moon  beamed  forth,  and  all  the  holy 
place  sounded  with  festal  joy':  sometimes  on  the 
victor's  return  to  his  native  city,  either  at  a  banquet, 
or  during  a  procession  to  a  temple.  The  odes  differ 
much  in  style  and  length.  Thus  the  last  Olympian 
ode,  on  a  boy's  victory  in  the  boys'  short  foot-race, 
consists  of  only  19  lines,  being  merely  a  thanksgiving 
to  the  Graces,  in  whose  temple  it  is  sung.  The  fourth 
Pythian  ode,  in  honour  of  a  victory  gained  in  the 
chariot-race  by  Arcesilas,  king  of  the  Greek  colony  of 
Cyrene  in  Africa,  is  of  299  lines,  and  includes  a  grand 
epic  story  in  lyric  form, — the  story  of  Jason  sailing  in 
the  ship  Argo  to  Colchis,  and,  with  Medea's  help, 
bringing  back  the  golden  fleece.  This  ode  was 
brought  out  at  Cyrene  with  a  splendid  chorus. 

31.  Pindar's  treatment  of  the  myths. — Pindar 
seldom  dwells  much  on  the  details  of  any  particular 
victory.  In  the  case  of  the  chariot-race,  the  most  im- 
portant contest  of  all,  it  was  not  easy  to  connect  the 
actual  victory  with  the  personal  merit  of  the  owner, 
unless  he  had  also  been  the  driver.  Pindar  usually 
takes  some  heroic  legend  or  group  of  legends  con- 
nected with  the  victor  or  the  victor's  city,  and  makes 
this  his  main  theme.  Thus,  in  the  fourth  Pythian, 
the  link  between  Jason's  story  and  the  king  of 
Cyrene  is  found  in  the  tradition  that  Cyrene  had 
been  colonised  from  the  island  of  Thera  by  the  de- 
scendants of  one  of  Jason's  comrades.  In  treating 
the  legends,  Pindar  aims  especially  at  bringing  out 
their  moral,  and  applying  this  to  the  victor  or  his  city. 
If  we  wish  to  understand  Pindar's  place  among  his 
contemporaries,   we   must   never   forget  how  closely 


68  GREEK  LITERATURE.  [part  I. 

these  legends  which  he  interpreted  were  bound  up 
with  Greek  religion,  and  with  the  belief  of  Greek 
cities  and  great  Greek  families  about  their  own  origin. 

32..  The  loss  of  the  music  by  which  Pindar's  Odes 
were  accompanied  deprives  us  of  an  indispensable  aid 
to  the  comprehension  of  their  effect  as  works  of  art. 
And,  if  the  music  were  extant,  modern  imagination 
would  still  have  to  supply  the  scenic  accessories  of  a 
gorgeous  festival,  the  light,  the  colour,  the  movement, 
the  glowing  sympathy  of  a  brilliant  audience  with  the 
newly  won  or  freshly  remembered  victory  which  shed 
a  reflected  lustre  on  the  victor's  native  city,  the  thrill 
of  patriotic  pride  responding  to  each  allusion,  faint 
or  dark,  perhaps,  for  us,  that  touched  some  house- 
hold word  of  inherited  renown,  the  sense  of  deepened 
spiritual  life  with  which  Greeks  for  whom  the  faith  of 
their  fathers  was  still  a  vital  force  heard  the  secret 
lessons  of  divine  lore  drawn  forth  by  that  great  poet  of 
all  Greece  in  whom  the  priests  of  the  Delphian  Apollo 
revered  the  full  inspiration  of  their  god.  Pindar's 
achievement  cannot  be  measured  by  a  literary  criti- 
cism of  his  text.  The  glory  of  his  song  has  passed 
for  ever  from  the  world  with  the  sound  of  the  rolling 
harmonies  on  which  it  once  was  borne,  with  the 
splendour  of  rushing  chariots  and  athletic  forms 
around  which  it  threw  its  radiance,  with  the  white- 
pillared  cities  by  the  Aegean  or  Sicilian  sea  in  which 
it  wrought  its  spell,  with  the  beliefs  or  joys  which 
it  ennobled;  but  those  who  love  his  poetry,  and 
who  strive  to  enter  into  its  high  places,  can  still  know 
that  they  breathe  a  pure  and  bracing  air,  and  can  still 
feel  vibrating  through  a  clear  calm  sky  the  strong 
pulse  of  the  eagle's  wings  as  he  soars  with  steady 
eyes  against  the  sun. 

33.  Thus  the  two  greatest  lyric  poets,  Simonides 
and  Pindar,  carried  Lyric  Poetry  into  a  wider  field. 
With  them,  while  it  is  mainly  Dorian  in  form,  it 
ceases  to  belong,  by  spirit,  to  any  one  division  of  the 


chap,  x.]  THE  DRAMA.  69 

Greek  people.  It  begins  to  speak  to  all  the  Greeks 
about  those  great  traditions  and  deeds  which  make  up 
the  common  faith  and  fame.  And  now  the  law  of 
natural  growth  which  goes  all  through  Greek  litera- 
ture calls  on  another  branch  of  the  Greek  race  to  do 
its  part. 


PART   II.     THE   ATTIC    LITERATURE. 
CHAPTER  I. 

THE    DRAMA. 

Tragedy.     Aeschylus,    525 — 456  B.C.      Sophocles,    495—405 

B.C.     Euripides,  480 — 406  B.C. 
The  Old  Comedy.     Aristophanes,  448— 385  B.C.     The  Middle 

Comedy,  390—320  B.C.;  the  Neiu  Comedy,  320—250  B.C. 

i.  The  people  of  Attica  belonged  to  the  Ionian 
face,  but  had  a  stamp  of  their  own  which  distinguished 
them  from  the  Ionians  in  the  colonies  of  Asia  Minor. 
Aristotle  remarked  that  the  Greek  temperament,  like 
the  Greek  climate,  is  a  happy  mean  between  its  neigh- 
bours on  west  and  east;  the  Greek  is  more  intelligent 
than  the  brave  European,  and  more  manly  than  the 
subtle  Asiatic.  The  like  might  be  said  of  the  Attic 
temperament  as  compared  with  those  two  others  which 
form  the  great  standing  contrast  in  Greek  history,  the 
Ionian  and  the  Dorian.  The  Athenian  mind  has  the 
elasticity  and  bright  grace  of  the  Ionian.  It  has  the 
fortitude  and  sober  intelligence  of  the  Dorian.  But  it 
is  not,  like  the  Ionian,  effeminate,  nor,  like  the  Dorian, 
rigid.  The  Attic  language  is  like  the  Attic  mind,  flexible 
without  too  much  softness,  precise  and  vigorous  with- 
out harshness.  The  Epic  poetry  of  the  Ionians  and 
the  choral  Lyric  poetry  of  the  Dorians  were  blended 

IV* 


70  GREEK  LITERATURE.  [part  n. 

by  the  Attic  genius  in  a  new  poetical  form,  which 
has  more  varied  interest,  but  which  also  demands 
more  various  power,  than  any  other — the  drama. 
Artistic  drama  was  the  creation  of  Athens. 

2.  Origin  of  drama. — From  early  times,  we  saw, 
the  Greek  conceived  his  deities  as  men  and  women, 
with  more  than  human  power,  but  susceptible  of 
human  joy  or  sorrow,  malice  or  partisanship.  The  more 
a  Greek  entered  into  the  spirit  of  his  religion,  the 
more  personal  sympathy  he  would  feel  with  his  gods' 
joy  or  sorrow.  Now,  among  all  the  Greek  gods,  there 
was  none  that  appealed  to  human  sympathy  more 
vividly  than  Dionysus,  the  god  of  wine,  the  giver  of 
physical  joy  and  excitement,  the  enemy  of  every- 
thing that  can  darken  or  deaden  the  vital  spirit  in 
man.  Dionysus  was  described  as  traversing  the  earth 
in  a  progress  full  of  danger  and  anguish  and  triumph, 
as  overcoming  bitter  foes  divine  or  human,  as  establish- 
ing his  worship  in  India,  in  Asia,  in  Greece;  and 
through  these  legends  there  ran  a  mystic  undercurrent 
of  allusion  to  a  place  where  those  who"  have  been 
faithful  on  earth  shall  drink  after  death  of  a  cup 
stronger  and  sweeter  than  wine. 

3.  His  festivals  belonged  to  the  season  when 
the  grapes  were  gathered, — when  the  wine-press  was 
busy, — when,  in  mid-winter,  last  year's  cask  was 
tapped, — or  when  the  return  of  spring  brought  the 
first  sunshine  for  the  vines.  In  December  the  people 
of  Attica  kept  the  Vintage  Feast, — the  'Lesser' 
or  'Rural'  Dionysia;  in  January,  the  Feast  of  the 
Wine-press  (Lenaea) ;  in  February,  the  Anthesteria, 
the  merry  '  Feast  of  Flowers,'  when  last  year's  wine 
was  opened ;  and  in  March,  the  Great  Dionysia. 
The  last  three  were  kept  at  Athens,  the  first  was  kept 
in  the  country.  Imagine,  then,  the  people  of  an 
Attic  village  gathered  together  to  keep  the  Vintage 
Feast  of  Dionysus  at  the  foot  of  the  warm,  vine-clad 
hills.     There  is  a  rustic  altar  of  wood  or  turf.     Rustic 


chap.  I.]  THE  DRAMA.  7 1 

singers  gather  round  it  to  sing  a  hymn  in  honour 
of  the  god,  relating  some  of  his  well-known  adventures. 
The  story  said  that  Dionysus  was  attended  in  his 
wanderings  by  certain  woodland  beings,  the  satyrs, 
with  long  pointed  ears,  snub  noses,  and  goats'  tails. 
It  would  be  natural  for  the  rustic  worshippers,  singing 
of  the  god's  fortunes,  to  feign  that  they  themselves 
were  such  satyrs,  to  speak  of  his  victory  or  suffering  as 
if  they  had  seen  it.  This  would  seem  to  bring  them 
nearer  to  their  god. 

4.  And  then,  in  their  yearning  to  imagine  his 
deeds  more  vividly,  another  step  would  soon  be  taken. 
The  leader  of  the  chorus  would  enact  the  character  of 
Dionysus  himself,  or  of  a  messenger  from  him.  He 
would  relate  some  exploit  of  the  god,  or  some  danger 
which  the  god  had  gone  through.  The  chorus  would 
then  express  in  song  the  feelings  which  the  recital 
awakened.  Here,  then,  we  should  have  the  first 
germ  of  drama — that  is  of  poetry,  not  in  narra- 
tive only,  like  epic,  but  in  action.  The  choral 
hymn  sung  to  Dionysus  on  such  occasions  was  called  the 
dithyramb.  From  the  dithyramb  sprang  both  Tragedy 
and  Comedy.  Tragedy  means  the  '  goat-song,'  because 
a  goat  was  sacrificed  to  Dionysus  before  the  choral 
hymn  was  sung.  Comedy  means  the  '  village-song,' 
this  same  hymn  looked  at  from  another  point  of  view, 
as  bringing  out  the  jests  of  a  rustic  carnival.  But  this 
chorus  must  at  first  have  been  of  a  very  rude  kind, — 
little  more  than  a  rustic  band  of  revellers  led  by  a 
flute-player.  The  musician  and  poet  Arion  (600  B.C.) 
was  the  first  to  give  the  dithyramb  a  regular  lyric 
form.  He  arranged  it  to  be  sung  at  the  festivals 
of  Dionysus  by  a  trained  chorus  of  fifty  persons, 
grouped  round  the  altar,  and  hence  called  a  cyclic  or 
circular  chorus. 

5.     This  artistic  chorus  to  Dionysus  first  came  in 
among  the  Dorians.     But  it  was  in  Attica  that  the 
next   steps  were  taken.     Thespis  (536  B.C.)  was  a 
7 


72  GREEK  LITERATURE.  [part  ii. 

leader  of  dithyrambic  choruses,  who  made  a  slight 
improvement  by  arranging  that  the  dialogue  about 
Dionysus  should  be  no  longer  between  the  leader  and 
the  whole  chorus,  but  between  the  leader  and  one 
member  of  the  chorus  specially  appointed  for  that  pur- 
pose. The  leader  or  coryphaeus  stood  on  a  raised 
platform,  and  in  the  pauses  of  the  choral  song  held 
a  dialogue  with  this  one  member  of  the  chorus,  who 
was  called  the  answerer,  {hypocrites), — afterwards  the 
ordinary  Greek  word  for  actor.  Thespis  must  not 
be  regarded  as  the  founder  of  Tragedy.  The  story 
that  he  went  about  the  country  with  a  company  of 
strolling  players,  acting  his  plays  on  a  waggon,  comes 
from  a  confusion.  In  the  processions  of  Dionysus 
and  Demeter,  there  was  free  licence  of  rough  jesting 
among  the  crowd ;  and  jokes  from  a  cart  became 
proverbial. 

6.  Phrynichus  of  Athens  (512 — 476)  still  used 
only  one  actor,  but  improved  the  organisation  of  the 
chorus,  sometimes  subdividing  it  into  smaller  bands, 
one  of  which  might  represent  a  group  of  maidens, 
another  a  group  of  elders,  or  the  like.  One  of  his 
choral  performances  represented  the  Capture  of  Mi- 
letus, the  chief  town  of  Ionia,  in  the  last  year  of  the 
Ionian  Revolt  (494  b.c).  The  Athenians  were  so 
moved,  Herodotus  says,  that  they  fined  the  poet,  who 
had  set  before  them  the  sufferings  of  their  kinsmen, 
'for  reminding  them  of  their  own  misfortunes.'  In 
his  Phoenissae  (476  b.c.)  Phrynichus  celebrated  the 
deeds  of  Athens  in  the  Persian  Wars :  one  group  of 
the  chorus  represented  Phoenician  women  who  had 
been  sent  to  the  Persian  court,  while  another  group 
represented  Persian  elders. 

7.  '  Satyric  '  pieces. — The  satyrs,  or  goat-like 
attendants  of  Dionysus,  still  kept  their  old  place  in 
his  traditional  worship.  And  as  the  choral  perform- 
ance became  more  refined  and  artistic,  a  special 
entertainment  was  set  apart  for  the  purpose  of  bringing 


chap.  I.]  THE  DRAMA.  73 

in  these  grotesque  beings.  In  this  the  chorus  repre- 
sented satyrs,  as  in  the  early  days  of  the  dithyramb. 
Choerilus  (524 — 465)  of  Athens  is  named  as  'king 
of  the  Satyr-play ' ;  and  it  was  further  developed  by 
Pratinas  (500 — 460  b.c.)  a  Dorian  of  Phlius  who 
came  to  Athens. 

8.  Aeschylus,  the  real  founder  of  Tragedy, 
was  an  Athenian  of  the  township  of  Eleusis,  and  was 
born  in  525  B.C.  The  family  of  his  father  Euphorion 
was  ancient  and  distinguished.  At  the  age  of  25,  in 
500  B.C.,  Aeschylus  competed  for  the  tragic  prize  with 
Pratinas;  but  Phrynichus  was  his  chief  rival  in  his 
earlier  career.  Either  then  or  soon  afterwards  he 
brought  in  the  change  which  first  created  true  drama. 
The  '  tragedy '  which  Aeschylus  found  existing  was  a 
sacred  choral  entertainment  somewhat  like  a  modern 
oratorio,  in  which  the  choral  song  and  music  were 
occasionally  relieved  by  the  recitative  of  a  single 
actor,  or  by  dialogue  between  this  actor  and  the 
leader  of  the  Chorus.  Aeschylus  introduced  a  second 
actor.  The  dialogue  now  became  independent  of 
the  Chorus.  The  two  actors,  by  varying  their  parts, 
could  act  a  complete  story  from  beginning  to  end. 
The  Chorus  took  part  in  this  action  by  giving  counsel 
or  encouragement  to  the  actors,  or  by  uttering  the 
feelings  which  the  events  would  move  in  a  thoughtful 
spectator.  Hitherto  the  dialogue  had  been  secondary 
to  the  choral  song.  Now  the  choral  song  became 
secondary  to  the  dialogue.  Drama  is  now 
mature :  since  now  a  complete  action  can  be  re- 
presented as  passing  before  the  eye.  We  have  seven 
great  tragedies  by  Aeschylus.  But  before  we  can 
understand  these,  we  must  have  some  notion  of  what 
a  performance  in  a  Greek  theatre  was  like. 

9.  Tragedy  was  acted  at  three  of  the  four 
Dionysiac  festivals,  the  Lesser  Dionysia,  the  Lenaea, 
and  the  Greater  Dionysia.  But  the  production  of  a 
new  tragedy  always  took  place  either  at  the  Lenaea 


74  GREEK  LITERATURE.  [part  ii. 

or  at  the  Greater  Dionysia.  A  poet's  first  object  was 
to  get  a  chorus.  Several  tragic  choruses  were  required 
for  each  festival.  Citizens,  chosen  from  the  ten  Attic 
tribes  in  turn,  paid  for  the  dresses  and  for  the  musical 
training  of  the  choruses.  This  was  a  costly  but  a  very 
popular  public  service.  Men  vied  with  each  other  in 
doing  it  handsomely :  a  tragic  chorus  sometimes  cost 
about  .£120,  equivalent  to  many  times  that  sum  now : 
and  the  choregiis  whose  chorus  was  best  trained  and 
dressed  got  a  prize.  The  '  Street  of  Tripods '  at  Athens 
was  adorned  with  monuments  of  such  victories,  and  we 
still  have  the  beautiful  monument  of  Lysicrates,  cho- 
regus  in  335  B.C.  A  poet  who  wished  to  bring  out  a 
tragedy  applied  to  the  '  King  Archon,'  who  had  the 
control  of  the  sacred  festivals,  for  a  chorus.  If  this 
was  granted,  the  poet  had  next  to  train  it,  and  to  get 
his  actors.  In  the  early  days  of  tragic  art,  the  tragic 
poet  often  acted  himself.  Later,  professional  actors 
were  paid  by  the  State,  and  the  poets  sometimes  cast  lots 
for  a  chief  actor,  who  then  chose  his  own  subordinates. 
A  third  actor  was  first  used  by  Sophocles  in  468  B.C., 
and  one  of  his  late  plays,  the  Oedipus  at  Co/onus, 
requires  a  fourth  actor.  '  Mute  persons,'  such  as 
guards,  servants,  &c,  could  be  brought  on  the  stage  in 
addition  to  the  regular  actors.  The  women's  parts 
were  acted  by  men.  When  the  principal  character  in 
the  piece  is  a  woman,  the  chorus '  is  composed  of 
women ;  unless  the  poet  wishes,  for  artistic  reasons,  to 
isolate  the  heroine,  as  in  the  Antigone  of  Sophocles, 
where  the  chorus  consists  of  Theban  Elders. 

10.  A  trilogy  was  a  group  of  three  tragedies. 
A  tetralogy  was  a  group  of  three  tragedies  with  a 
satyr-drama  added  to  them.  We  are  told  that  Aeschy- 
lus was  the  first  who  set  the  example  of  competing  for 
the  prize  with  three  tragedies, — acted  successively,  and 
representing  subjects  connected  with  each  other, — 
followed  by  a  satyr-drama.  Three  plays  of  Aeschylus, 
— the  Agamemnon,  the  Choephori,  and  the  Eumen- 


chap,  i.]  THE  DRAMA.  75 

ides, — form  the  only  extant  example  of  such  a  trilogy. 
They  are  usually  called  collectively  the  Oresteia,  i.e. 
'  the  story  of  Orestes' :  but  the  Athenians  seem  to  have 
given  this  name  only  to  the  Choephori,  or  to  the 
Choephori  with  the  Eumenides.  Sophocles  'began 
the  custom  of  contending  with  a  single  play,  and  not 
a  tetralogy ' :  and  this  is  explained  to  mean  that, 
though  he  brought  out  tetralogies,  the  four  pieces 
composing  each  of  them  were  not  connected  in 
subject.  It  is  probable  that  the  tragic  poet  did  not 
always  or  necessarily  bring  out  a  trilogy,  but  might 
also  compete  with  a  single  tragedy  :  under  what  con- 
ditions, however,  we  cannot  tell. 

ii.  The  Greek  Theatre. — The  early  tragic 
choruses  had  performed  on  a  temporary  wooden  plat- 
form, sometimes  in  the  market-place.  There  was  an 
old  proverb  for  a  bad  place  at  a  spectacle, — '  A  view 
from  the  poplar,' — because  people  used  to  climb  a 
poplar  tree  near  the  market-place  when  they  could  not 
get  seats.  Once  this  platform  gave  way, — in  500  B.C.,  it 
is  said,  when  Aeschylus  and  Pratinas  were  competing 
— and  it  was  then  decided  to  build  a  more  lasting  stage 
in  honour  of  the  god  Dionysus.  The  famous  Theatre 
of  Dionysus  was  begun  about  500  B.C.  It  was  in 
the  form  of  a  half-circle,  open  to  the  sky,  and  was 
situated  on  a  piece  of  ground,  sacred  to  Dionysus, 
called  the  Lenaeo'n,  or  Place  of  the  Wine-press,  at  the 
foot  of  the  Acropolis  on  its  south-east  side.  The 
upper  tiers  of  seats  for  the  spectators  were  hewn  out  of 
the  natural  rock  of  the  Acropolis ;  the  lower  tiers  were 
made  artificially  of  wood  or  stone;  and  a  stage  was 
built  of  stone,  with  a  high  back  wall  to  shut  it  in. 

12.  Now  imagine  yourself  sitting  in  one  of  the 
upper  tiers  of  seats,  with  your  back  to  the  Acropolis 
and  your  face  towards  Mount  Hymettus  where  it 
slopes  to  the  sea,  looking  down  into  the  theatre.  The 
house  can  easily  hold  upwards  of  20,000  people,  and 
we  hear  of  as  many  as  30,000  being  present.     That 


7 6  GREEK  LITERATURE.  [part  h. 

long,  very  narrow  platform  is  what  we  should  call  the 
stage,  and  what  the  Greeks  called  the  speaking-place, 
because  the  dialogue  of  the  actors  was  held  upon  it. 
The  high  wall  at  the  back  of  the  stage  is  the  scene. 
In  Tragedy,  the  hangings  or  painted  wood-work  with 
which  it  is  covered  represent  usually  a  temple  or  a 
palace ;  in  Comedy,  a  street  of  Athens  or  a  private 
house.  There  are  three  doors  in  it,  through  which 
the  actors  pass  in  and  out.  The  long  stage,  you 
see,  is  much  too  narrow  for  such  crowded  spectacles 
or  complicated  effects  as  are  seen  on  the  deep  modern 
stages. 

13.  At  the  middle  point  of  the  stage,  some  steps — 
known  as  '  Charon's  staircase,'  because  the  ghost  some- 
times comes  up  by  them — lead  down  into  what  we 
should  call  the  pit.  The  Greeks  call  it  the  orchestra  or 
dancing-place.  It  is  a  semicircle,  bounded  by  the 
lowest  row  of  seats  and  by  the  stage.  No  spectators 
are  admitted  to  it.  It  is  kept  exclusively  for  the 
chorus.  The  altar  which  you  see  in  the  middle  of 
the  orchestra  is  the  ihymele  or  altar  of  Dionysus.  It 
will  form  the  central  point  of  the  choral  dances. 

14.  The  lowest  tier  of  seats,  immediately  round  the 
orchestra,  contains  67  stalls  of  white  marble,  reserved 
for  priests  and  magistrates,  and  is  divided  into  13 
compartments  by  passages  which  run  the  whole  way  up 
to  the  topmost  row  of  seats,  so  as  to  cut  the  theatre 
into  13  wedge-like  segments.  There  is  also  a  broad 
cross-passage,  dividing  the  upper  block  of  tiers  from 
the  lower.  The  place  of  honour,  exactly  in  the  centre 
of  the  lowest  half-circle,  is  occupied  by  the  priest  of 
Dionysus,  with  the  priest  of  Apollo  on  his  right,  and 
on  his  left  the  priest  of  Zeus  Polieus,  or  '  Guardian  of 
the  City.'  The  theatre  is  a  sacred  place ;  both  Tragedy 
and  Comedy  are  acts  of  public  worship. 

15.  The  general  effect  of  a  Greek  tragedy 
was  unlike  anything  on  the  modern  stage.  It  de- 
pended chiefly  on  two  things.     First,  the  story  repre- 


chap.  I.]  THE  DRAMA.  77 

sented  was  one  which  the  whole  audience  knew  in  its 
main  outlines,  and  which  they  regarded  as  sacred,  since 
the  persons  were  the  gods  and  heroes  of  their  race. 
Secondly,  there  was  little  animated  gesture  or  move- 
ment on  the  stage.  The  two  or  three  actors  stood 
there  more  like  a  group  of  majestic  statues.  They 
wore  masks ;  for  the  calm  grandeur  of  Greek  tragedy 
could  dispense  with  animated  play  of  feature,  which 
would,  indeed,  have  been  lost  on  the  spectators  in  so 
large  a  space.  In  a  play  like  Oedipus  the  King, 
where  Oedipus  puts  out  his  own  eyes,  this  would 
not  happen  on  the  stage,  but  would  be  related 
by  a  messenger,  and  Oedipus  would  come  on  in  a 
different  mask.  The  tragic  actor  was  made  up  to 
look  larger  than  human  with  the  long  tragic  mask,  a 
sort  of  high  wig,  padding,  and  very  thick-soled  boots 
or  buskins.  Hence  Milton  speaks  of  tragedy  as  'the 
buskin'd  stage' — but  alludes  to  Ben  Jonson's  come- 
dies as  'Jonson's  learned  sock,'  because  the  ancient 
comic  actors  wore  slippers  {socci). 

16.  The  costume  of  tragic  actors  was  usually  of  one 
general  character, — that  which  was  worn  at  proces- 
sions or  festivals  of  the  god  Dionysus  :  a  striped  robe 
falling  in  folds  to  the  feet,  often  with  a  long  train, 
with  a  high,  broad  band  or  girdle ;  over  this,  a  mantle 
('  chlamys,'  the  Roman  palla)  of  bright  colour.  This 
general  type  of  costume  could  be  varied  so  as  to  ex- 
press the  different  conditions  of  the  persons,  but  the 
sacred,  festal  character  was  always  kept ;  it  was  never, 
in  the  classical  days,  merely  theatrical.  Partial  changes 
of  side-scenery  could  be  effected  by  '  the  revolving 
doors,'  as  they  were  called,  triangular  prisms  on  pivots 
at  the  sides  of  the  stage.  Changes  of  the  whole  back- 
scene  occur  nowhere  in  tragedy,  except  in  the  Ajax 
of  Sophocles,  and  in  the  Eumenides  (perhaps,  too,  the 
Choephori)  of  Aeschylus ;  when  a  curtain  would  be 
drawn  up  (not  dropped)  to  conceal  the  operation. 
There   were  mechanical  contrivances  for    suspending 


78  GREEK  LITERATURE.  [part  il 

gods    in  the  air,  and  for  showing    the  interior  of  a 
house  through  the  open  central  door. 

17.  Structure  of  a  tragedy. — The  first  part 
of  the  dialogue,  before  the  chorus  came  in,  was  called 
the  prologue.  The  song  of  the  chorus,  as  they 
marched  into  the  orchestra  and  took  their  place, 
was  called  the  parodos.  Each  choral  song  which 
they  afterwards  sang  at  their  station  was  called  a 
stasimon.  An  episode  was  the  portion  of  the  play 
contained  between  any  two  stasima.  The  part  after 
the  last  stasimon  to  the  end  was  the  exodus.  A  lyric 
dirge,  in  which  the  actor  on  the  stage  and  the  chorus 
in  the  orchestra  both  took  part,  was  called  a  commus. 
The  songs  of  the  chorus  practically  divide  the  tragedy 
into  acts,  usually  about  four  or  five  in  number.  The 
shortest  Greek  tragedy  that  we  have  contains  less  than 
900  lines ;  the  longest,  upwards  of  1 700. 

18.  Suppose  that  we  are  in  the  Theatre  of  Diony- 
sus at  the  great  festival  of  the  god  :  there  is  an  audience 
of  some  25,000,  not  only  Athenian  citizens  and  women 
(the  latter  placed  apart  from  the  men  in  the  upper 
rows),  but  Greeks  from  other  cities,  and  ambassadors 
seated  near  the  priests  and  magistrates  in  the  places 
next  the  orchestra.  We  are  to  see  the  Eumenides  or 
Furies  of  Aeschylus.  The  orchestra  is  empty  at  pre- 
sent. The  scene,  or  wall  behind  the  stage,  represents 
the  temple  of  Apollo  at  Delphi.  It  has  three  doors. 
Enter,  from  the  middle  or  'royal'  door,  the  aged 
priestess  of  Apollo;  she  wears  a  long  striped  robe, 
and  over  her  shoulders  a  saffron  mantle.  Pilgrims 
are  waiting  to  consult  the  oracle;  and  she  speaks  a 
prayer  before  she  goes  into  the  inner  chamber  of  the 
temple,  to  take  her  place  on  the  three-footed  throne, 
round  which  vapours  rise  from  the  cavern  beneath. 
Then  she  passes  into  the  shrine  through  the  central 
door. 

19.  But  she  quickly  returns  in  horror.  A  murderer, 
she  says,  is  kneeling  there,  and  the  ghastly  Furies,  his 


chap,  i.]  THE  DRAMA.  79 

pursuers,  are  asleep  around  him.  As  she  quits  the  stage 
by  the  side-door  on  the  right,  two  figures  come  forth 
by  the  central  door,  as  if  from  the  inner  shrine.  One 
of  them  wears  the  costume  of  the  Pythian  festival  at 
Delphi, — a  long  tunic,  gaily  striped,  with  sleeves,  and 
a  light  mantle  of  purple,  hanging  from  the  shoulders. 
In  his  left  hand  he  has  a  golden  bow.  This  is  the  god 
Apollo  himself.  The  other  figure  is  clad  with  much 
less  splendour;  at  his  back  hangs  loosely  the  petasus, 
a  broad-brimmed  hat  worn  by  hunters  or  shepherds 
or  wayfarers;  in  one  hand  he  bears  a  long  branch 
of  laurel,  the  symbol  of  the  suppliant,  in  the  other, 
a  drawn  sword.  This  is  Orestes,  who  has  slain  his 
mother  Clytaemnestra,  the  murderess  of  his  father 
Agamemnon,  and  has  sought  refuge  with  Apollo  from 
the  pursuing  Furies.  A  silent  figure  moves  behind 
these  two;  it  is  the  god  Hermes,  carrying  in  his  hand 
the  herald's  staff,  decked  with  white  ribbons.  Apollo 
bids  Hermes  escort  Orestes  to  Athens,  to  seek  the 
judgment  of  the  goddess  Athene. 

20.  The  ghost  of  Clytaemnestra  now  moves  into 
the  orchestra,  and  mounts  the  stage.  She  calls  on  the 
sleeping  Furies  within,  and  then  vanishes.  They  wake 
to  find  Orestes  gone,  and  dash  on  the  stage  in  wild 
rage — haggard  forms  with  sable  robes,  snaky  locks, 
and  blood-shot  eyes.  Apollo  appears,  and  drives 
them  from  his  shrine.  Now  the  scene  changes  to 
Athens.  Meanwhile  the  Furies  have  taken  their  station 
as  chorus  in  the  orchestra,  and,  in  grand  choral  songs, 
declare  their  mission  as  Avengers  of  blood.  Athene 
assembles  a  Court  of  Athenians  on  the  Hill  of  Ares, 
(the  real  Hill  of  Ares  was  not  half  a  mile  off,  on  the 
S.W.  side  of  the  Acropolis,)  and  thus  founds  the  famous 
Court  of  the  Areopagus.  The  Furies  arraign  Orestes; 
Apollo  defends  him.  The  votes  of  the  judges  are 
equally  divided.  Athene's  casting  vote  acquits  Orestes. 
The  wrath  of  the  Furies  now  threatens  Athens.  But 
Athene  at  last  prevails  on  them  to  accept  a  shrine 


80  GREEK  LITERATURE.  [part  ii. 

in  her  land, — a  cave  beneath  the  Hill  of  Ares ;  and 
the  play  ends  with  this  great  reconciliation,  as  a 
procession  of  torch-bearers  escort  the  Furies  to  their 
new  home. 

21.  Thus  a  Greek  tragedy  could  bring  before  a  vast 
Greek  audience,  in  a  grandly  simple  form,  harmonized 
by  choral  music  and  dance,  the  great  figures  of  their 
religious  and  civil  history  :  the  god  Apollo  in  his  tem- 
ple at  Delphi,  the  goddess  Athene  in  the  act  of  found- 
ing the  Court  of  the  Areopagus,  the  Furies  passing  to1 
their  shrine  beneath  the  hill,  the  hero  Orestes  on  his 
trial.  The  picture  had  at  once  ideal  beauty  of  the 
highest  kind  and,  for  Greeks,  a  deep  reality;  they 
seemed  to  be  looking  at  the  actual  beginning  of  those 
rites  and  usages  which  were  most  dear  and  sacred  in 
their  daily  life. 

22.  The  tragedies  of  Aeschylus. — The  great 
artists  of  old  Greece,  who  gave  themselves  wholly  to 
their  art,  were  prolific  :  70  tragedies,  besides  satyric 
dramas,  are  ascribed  to  Aeschylus  in  the  40  years  of 
his  poetical  life;  113  to  Sophocles;  92  to  Euripides; 
and  to  one  tragic  poet,  who  has  left  only  fragments,  no 
less  than  240.  From  Aeschylus  we  have  only  seven 
tragedies  left.  The  Persae,  brought  out  in  472  B.C.,  is 
a  magnificent  dramatic  song  of  triumph  for  the  victory 
of  Greece  over  the  invading  host  of  Persia.  Aeschylus 
had  himself  fought  at  Marathon,  at  Salamis,  at  Arte- 
misium  and  at  Plataea.  The  spirit  of  a  soldier  glows 
in  the  splendid  description  of  the  battle  of  Salamis, 
with  that  trumpet-call  ringing  above  it,  Go  forth,  sons 
of  the  Greeks,  free  your  country,  free  your  children  and 
wives,  and  the  shrines  of  your  ancestral  gods,  and  the 
tombs  of  your  fathers.  Nor  is  a  deep  moral  wanting ; 
the  spirit  of  Darius  rises  from  the  grave  to  tell  the 
nobles  of  Persia  that,  in  this  ruin,  the  gods  are  punish- 
ing the  insolence  of  Xerxes. 

23.  In  the  Seven  against  Thebes  (46S  B.C.)  we 
are  shown  how  the  inherited  curse  in  the  house  of 


chap,  i.]  THE  DRAMA.  81 

Oedipus  is  visited  on  his  sons  Eteocles  and  Polyneices, 
who  slay  each  other  in  single  combat  when  the  Argives, 
under  Adrastus,  besiege  Thebes.  Warriors  splendid 
in  their  panoply  gleam,  as  it  were,  under  a  sky  lurid 
with  the  lightnings  of  angry  gods.  The  Prometheus 
Bound  (of  uncertain  date,  perhaps  472 — 468  B.C.)  is 
a  sublime  picture  of  the  superhuman  being  who  had 
stolen  fire  from  heaven,  and  taught  the  elements  of 
civilisation  to  men,  chained  to  a  cliff  in  the  Caucasus 
by  command  of  Zeus,  the  new  king  of  the  gods. 
Prometheus  knows  a  secret  on  which  the  throne  of 
Zeus  depends;  but,  amid  his  tortures,  no  threats  will 
make  him  utter  it.  As  he  speaks  his  last  defiance,  the 
thunders  of  Zeus  break  forth,  and  the  scene  closes 
with  the  crash  of  an  appalling  tempest. 

24.  The  Suppliants  (462  b.c)  are  the  fifty  daughters 
of  Danaus,  who  have  fled  with  their  father  from 
Egypt  to  Argos,  in  order  to  avoid  marrying  their  first- 
cousins,  the  fifty  sons  of  Aegyptus.  The  Argive  king 
Pelasgus  receives  and  protects  them.  The  Agamem- 
non, Choephori,  and  Eumenides,  were  the  crown  of  the 
poet's  work.  They  were  brought  out  at  Athens  in 
458  b.c,  two  years  before  his  death.  In  the  Aga- 
memnon, we  have  the  return  of  the  victorious  king 
from  Troy  to  Mycenae,  and  his  murder  by  Clytaem- 
nestra.  The  Choephori,  or  '  offerers  of  libations,'  are 
Electra,  daughter  of  Agamemnon,  and  her  handmaids, 
bringing  offerings  to  her  father's  grave.  Her  prayer 
is  heard.  Orestes  returns  to  Mycenae,  and  slays 
Clytaemnestra  and  her  paramour  Aegisthus.  In  the 
Eumenides,  as  we  have  seen,  Orestes  is  accused  by 
the  Furies,  defended  by  Apollo,  and  absolved  by 
Athene. 

25.  Religious  and  moral  Ideas  of  Aeschy- 
lus.— Aeschylus  felt  profoundly  the  seeming  war  of 
principles  in  the  moral  government  of  the  world. 
When  the  wicked  prospered  and  the  guiltless  suffered 
others  might  be  content  to  say,  '  The  god  is  a  blind, 


82  GREEK  LITERATURE.  [part  n. 

malignant  force.'  Aeschylus  strove  to  go  farther  back. 
Somewhere,  if  we  could  only  reach  it,  he  felt,  there  is 
a  higher  unity  in  which  the  seeming  strife  is  resolved. 
True,  those  bright  gods  of  Olympus  above,  who  send 
us  joy  and  health,  who  are  so  full  of  loving-kindness 
and  wise  providence,  seem  to  rule  on  different  prin- 
ciples from  the  dark,  terrible  gods  of  the  nether  world, 
who  send  plague  or  famine  to  blight  us,  whose  joy  is 
in  drinking  blood,  who  are  the  ministers  of  pain  and 
death.  Yet  let  us  look  deeper,  and  we  shall  see  that 
both  the  gods  of  heaven  and  the  gods  infernal  are 
working  out  one  law.  That  law  is  the  law  of  righte- 
ousness. A  power  above  the  gods  themselves,  even 
Necessity,  ordains  that  no  offence  against  Righteous- 
ness shall  remain  unpunished. 

26.  A  man  is  very  rich  and  great ;  he  grows  ar- 
rogant. The  gods  begin  to  be  jealous  of  him.  He 
sins.  The  gods  blind  his  heart.  He  goes  on  from 
crime  to  crime.  At  last  his  measure  is  full.  Fate 
forges  a  sword  and  puts  it  into  the  hand  of  the 
Fury;  Justice  gives  the  word;  and  the  sinner  is  smit- 
ten. Sometimes  the  enormous  sin  of  the  father  is  even 
visited  on  his  children.  A  curse  descends  from  genera- 
tion to  generation.  An  Avenging  Fury  becomes  the 
silent  inmate  of  the  house.  After  long  years,  perhaps, 
some  act  of  insolence  done  by  the  inheritor  of  the 
curse  puts  him  in  the  Fury's  grasp,  and  she  claims 
from  him  the  whole  debt.  Thus  the  gods  slowly  teach 
men  that  sin  entails  suffering.  Even  in  sleep  a  re- 
membrance of  anguish  is  busy  at  the  heart,  painfully 
instilling  the  lesson  of  virtue.  Nay,  the  younger  gods 
themselves  have  been  thus  disciplined  by  Necessity. 
Zeus,  when  he  had  overthrown  an  elder  dynasty,  at 
first  abused  his  power.  But  Necessity  taught  him  that 
he  stood  in  need  of  wisdom,  and  must  master,  not  by 
violence,  the  secret  of  Prometheus. 

Thus  in  Aeschylus  we  are  led  up  to  the  mysterious 
sources  of  divine  and  moral  law.   The  war  between  the 


chap.  I.]  THE  DRAMA.  83 

gods  of  heaven  and  hell  is  found  to  be  no  longer  im^ 
placable,  since  both,  constrained  by  Necessity  and 
aided  by  her  daemonic  ministers,  are  working  in  the 
cause  of  Righteousness. 

27.  Aeschylus  was  the  tragic  poet  of  all  Greece 
rather  than  that  of  Athens  alone.  He  had  fought  in 
those  great  wars  against  Persia  which  had  first  made 
the  Greeks  everywhere  feel  that  they  were  one  people ; 
and  in  his  poetry  he  spoke  to  all  the  Greeks  alike.  He 
said  that  his  plays  were  only  morsels  from  Homer's 
banquet ;  and  he  is  indeed  the  dramatist  of  that  heroic 
age  in  which  the  traditions  of  all  the  Greeks  meet.  His 
heroes,  as  in  the  Iliad,  stand  above  common  humanity. 
He  has  the  true  Homeric  feeling  for  the  majesty  of 
kings,  whose  sceptres  are  given  to  them  by  Zeus,  and 
who  are  royal  even  among  the  dead.  After  the  Persian 
wars,  as  Athens  grew  more  democratic,  it  probably  be- 
came less  congenial  to  Aeschylus.  He  may  have  felt, 
too,  after  the  victory  of  his  younger  rival  Sophocles 
in  468  B.C.,  that  his  poetry  was  ceasing  to  be  in 
sympathy  with  the  rising  generation.  Much  of  his 
later  life  was  spent  away  from  Athens,  chiefly  with 
Hieron  of  Syracuse,  whose  foundation  of  Catana,  about 
476  B.C.,  he  celebrated  in  a  lost  play,  The  Women  of 
Aetna.  In  his  ILumenides  we  see  his  political  feeling 
towards  the  close  of  his  life.  He  does  honour  to  The- 
seus, the  hero  of  the  old  Athenian  democracy.  But  he 
warns  the  new  democracy  against  enfeebling  the  con- 
servative Areopagus,  the  'safeguard  of  the  city,'  or 
taking  away  its  old  right  of  watching  over  public 
morals.  Aeschylus  died  at  Gela  in  Sicily,  in  456  B.C., 
aged  69. 

28.  Sophocles,  son  of  Sophilus,  was  born  proba- 
bly in  495  B.C.  His  family  belonged  to  the  township  of 
Colonus,  near  Athens ;  that  Colonus  where,  in  one  of 
his  great  tragedies,  he  makes  the  weary  Oedipus  find 
rest, — where  the  nightingale  haunts  the  green  glades, 
constant  to  the  dark-veined  ivy, — where  narcissus  and 

8 


84  GREEK  LITERATURE.  [part  ii. 

golden  crocus  bloom,  where  the  springs  of  clear 
water  never  fail;  a  region  hallowed  by  the  joyous 
presence  of  the  god  Dionysus  and  loved  by  the 
Muses.  Sophocles  was  fifteen  years  of  age  when  the 
Greeks  overthrew  the  Persians  in  the  great  sea-fight 
at  Salamis,  and  was  chosen  to  lead  the  paean  sung  by 
a  chorus  of  boys  before  the  trophy  raised  to  com- 
memorate that  victory.  He  had  lessons  from  the 
famous  musician  Lamprus;  and  in  468,  at  the  age  of 
twenty-seven,  competed  for  the  prize  of  tragedy  against 
Aeschylus,  his  elder  by  just  thirty  years.  The  house 
was  divided,  we  are  told,  on  the  merits  of  the  rivals. 
The  presiding  archon  left  the  decision  to  Cimon, 
who  had  just  come  back  from  his  victories  in  Thrace, 
and  to  the  other  nine  generals.  They  gave  the  prize 
to  Sophocles. 

29.  From  that  time  to  his  death  he  was  the  favourite 
tragic  poet  of  Athens.  The  first  prize  fell  to  him 
no  less  than  twenty  times.  The  average  merit  of  his 
pieces,  and  of  his  competitors,  may  be  judged  from 
the  fact  that  Oedipus  the  King  got  only  a  second 
prize.  In  440  B.C.,  after  his  great  triumph  with  the 
Antigone,  he  was  appointed  one  of  the  ten  Generals 
who,  with  Pericles,  were  to  reduce  the  revolt  of  Samos, 
— an  instance  of  the  public  honour  paid  at  Athens  to 
poetical  genius,  and,  in  this  case,  probably  a  sign  of 
general  faith  in  the  poet's  practical  gifts.  The  only 
cloud  on  his  long,  brilliant  life  seems  to  have  been  a 
transient  one.  His  son  Iophon,  resenting  the  par- 
tiality of  Sophocles  for  a  son  and  a  grandson  by  a 
second  marriage,  is  said  to  have  arraigned  him  before 
their  clansmen  as  being  incapable  of  managing  pro- 
perty. Sophocles,  the  story  adds,  was  content  to  dis- 
prove his  imbecility  by  reading  the  chorus  from  his 
Oedipus  at  Co/onus,  in  which  he  praises  his  native  place. 

30.  Genius,  beauty  of  person,  piety,  a  sweet  nature, 
and  a  happy  fortune  made  Sophocles  seem  to  the 
Athenians  a  man  loved  by  the  gods.     In  his  boyhood 


chap,  i.]  THE  DRAMA.  85 

he  had  sung  the  paean  that  was  as  a  prelude  to  the 
great  career  of  Athens;  and  he  died,  in  405  B.C.,  just 
before  that  career  was.  closed  by  the  battle  of  Aegos- 
potami.  He  has  died  7vell,  a  poet  wrote  of  him  some 
months  later,  having  suffered  no  evil.  And  Aristophanes, 
in  a  piece  composed  at  the  time,  imagines  Sophocles 
in  the  underworld,  standing  aside  from  the  noisy, 
rivalries  of  the  dead, — gentle  in  the  shades,  even  as  he 
was  gentle  among  us. 

To  be  worshipped  after  death  as  a  hero  was  nearly 
the  equivalent,  in  old  Greece,  for  being  canonized  as 
a  saint.  This  worship  the  Athenians  paid  to  Sopho- 
cles, honouring  his  memory  with  yearly  sacrifice. 

31.  In  about  60  years,  Sophocles  wrote  upwards  of 
100  plays,  of  which  only  seven  remain.  The  play  called 
the  Trachiniae  or  Women  of  Trachis,  because  these 
form  the  chorus,  tells  how  Deianeira,  living  at  Trachis 
in  Thessaly,  learns  that  Heracles  has  fallen  in  love 
with  Iole,  and  sends  him  a  robe  anointed  with  the 
blood  of  the  Centaur  Nessus,  knowing  not  that  it  is 
aught  but  a  harmless  love-charm ;  and  how  Heracles, 
in  mortal  torment  from  the  poison,  bids  his  son  Hyllus 
take  him  to  the  top  of  Mount  Oeta,  and  lay  him  on  a 
funeral  pyre;  and  thence,  'wrapped  in  heavenly  flame, 
is  gathered  to  the  host  of  the  gods.'  It  has  been 
doubted  whether  the  play  is  by  Sophocles,  but  ground- 
lessly;  if  inferior  to  some  of  his  plays,  it  is  still  one  of 
the  finest  and  most  dramatically  constructed  of  extant 
tragedies.  The  Ajax  opens  on  the  morning  after  Ajax 
— in  the  frenzy  with  which  Athene  punished  his  pride, 
— has  butchered  the  cattle  of  the  Greeks,  thinking 
that  he  was  slaying  the  Greek  chiefs  who  had  slighted 
him  by  giving  the  armour  of  Achilles  to  Odysseus. 
When  reason  returns,  he  is  overwhelmed  with  the 
sense  of  dishonour,  and  kills  himself.  The  Eleclra 
shows  us  the  vengeance  taken  by  Orestes  on  his 
mother  Clytaemnestra  and  on  Aegisthus, — the  theme 
treated  in  the  Choephori  of  Aeschylus  and  the  Electra 
18* 


86  GREEK  LITERATURE.  [part  ii. 

of  Euripides;  but  has  a  clearer  artistic  unity  than  the 
former,  and  more  ideal  beauty  than  the  latter. 

32.  Oedipus  the  King  is,  in  subtlety  of  structure, 
the  masterpiece  among  extant  Greek  plays.  Oedipus, 
the  great,  the  wise,  has  delivered  Thebes  from  the 
Sphinx  by  guessing  her  riddle,  has  been  raised, 
though  an  alien,  to  the  throne,  and  has  married  the 
widow  of  the  late  King  Laius.  A  pestilence  comes 
on  the  city;  and  when  the  Thebans  ask  the  oracle  at 
Delphi  how  they  can  be  healed,  the  god  Apollo  bids 
them  investigate  and  punish  the  murder  of  Laius, 
who  was  slain  on  the  road  to  Delphi.  Oedipus  takes 
up  the  search  with  zeal.  Step  by  step  it  is  proved,  first 
that  he  himself  was  the  unwitting  murderer  of  Laius; 
next,  that  he  was  the  murdered  man's  son,  and  that, 
therefore,  his  wife  is  his  mother.  In  the  frenzy  of  his 
horror  he  puts  out  his  own  eyes.  When  the  Oedipus  at 
Colonus  opens,  some  years  have  passed.  Oedipus  has 
been  driven  from  Thebes  by  Creon,  (now  king)  with 
the  consent  of  his  own  sons,  Eteocles  and  Polyneices. 
Attended  by  his  daughters,  Antigone  and  Ismene,  he 
finds  an  asylum  at  Athens  with  King  Theseus;  he 
wins  peace  and  pardon  from  the  gods;  and  at  last, 
called  by  the  voice  of  one  unseen,  he  passes  from 
earth  in  strange  wise,  beheld  of  Theseus  alone. 

33.  The  Antigone  is  a  yet  later  chapter  in  the  story 
of  the  house.  The  two  sons  of  Oedipus,  Polyneices, 
the  assailant  of  Thebes,  and  Eteocles,  its  champion, 
have  slain  each  other  in  single  combat.  Creon, 
king  of  Thebes,  has  decreed  that  no  one,  on  pain  of 
death,  shall  pay  the  rites  of  burial  to  Polyneices ;  but 
Antigone  sets'  the  unwritten  law  of  the  gods  above 
the  edict  of  man,  and  renders  the  last  honours  to 
her  brother's  corpse,  and  is  put  to  death  by  Creon; 
whose  son,  the  lover  of  Antigone,  and  that  son's 
mother,  slay  themselves,  cursing  him. 

The  scene  of  the  Philoctetes  (409  B.C.)  is  laid  on 
the   desolate   isle  of  Lemnos.     Ten  years  ago,  the 


chap,  i.]  THE  DRAMA.  87 

hero  Philoctetes,  suffering  from  a  noisome  wound  in 
the  foot,  was  left  there  in  his  sleep  by  the  Greeks,  at 
the  instance  of  Odysseus,  as  they  sailed  against  Troy ; 
but  now  they  need  him,  since  he  has  the  bow  of 
Heracles,  by  which  alone — so  say  the  gods — Troy 
can  be  taken.  Odysseus  persuades  Neoptolemus,  the 
son  of  Achilles,  to  help  him  in  a  base  scheme  for 
seizing  Philoctetes,  or  stealing  his  bow;  the  scheme 
has  succeeded,  when  the  young  man's  better  nature 
revolts  against  it.  If  Philoctetes  will  not  come  with 
them  to  Troy,  Neoptolemus  will  not  steal  his  bow. 
At  this  moment,  the  divine  Heracles  himself  appears ; 
Philoctetes  learns  the  health  and  glory  that  await  him 
at  Troy ;  and  gladly  obeys  his  summoners. 

34.  Aeschylus  shows  us  grand  heroic  forms  fulfil- 
ling the  doom  appointed  for  them  by  awful  supernatural 
powers  :  Sophocles  is  preeminently  the  dramatist  of 
human  character.  He  excels  in  delineating  the  great 
primary  emotions  of  our  nature.  The  self-sacrificing 
devotion  of  Antigone,  the  victory  of  youthful  generosity 
over  youthful  ambition  in  Neoptolemus,  the  bitter  sense 
of  lost  honour  in  Ajax,  the  horror  in  Oedipus  of  a  sud- 
den and  overwhelming  reverse,  are  exquisite  studies  of 
the  human  soul  to  which  the  artist  has  given  a  typical 
beauty — expressing  what  is  essentially  true  in  each, 
marking  by  a  thousand  fine  touches  how  intimately  he 
felt  the  nature  which  he  was  drawing,  but  never  using 
his  subtle  analysis  for  the  sake  of  any  momentary  effect 
which  would  mar  the  repose,  disturb  the  symmetry  and 
clearness,  of  Tragedy  as  he  conceived  it — that  is,  as 
a  work  which  is  a  failure  unless  it  has  artistic  breadth 
and  unity,  and  can  bear  to  be  viewed  as  we  view 
a  temple  or  a  group  of  sculpture,  judging  it  to  be 
good,  not  because  it  has  clever  details,  but  because 
it  is  beautiful  as  a  whole.  Sophocles  believes  in  the 
goodness  of  the  divine  agency  that  governs  the  world, 
not  because  he  fails  to  see  any  apparent  contradic- 
tions between  his  religion  and  the  moral  facts  of  life, 


88  GREEK  LITERATURE.  [part  ii. 

nor  because  he  can  partly  reconcile  such  conflicts,  as 
Aeschylus  did,  by  belief  in  a  Necessity  which  controls 
even  the  caprices  of  the  gods,  but  rather  because 
he  finds  a  solution  in  the  analysis  of  our  own  nature. 
The  deepest  instincts  of  human  nature  itself,  its  affec- 
tions, its  pity,  its  terror,  bear  witness  to  the  unity  and 
supremacy  of  an  unwritten  but  eternal  law  of  purity 
which  is  always  identical  with  the  true  will  of  the  gods, 
though  not  always  in  harmony  with  man's  positive 
interpretation  of  that  will. 

35.  Historically,  the  plays  of  Sophocles  have  this 
special  interest,  that  they  interpret,  more  spiritually 
than  anything  else  that  we  have,  the  higher  moral  and 
mental  side  of  the  age  of  Pericles;  they  have  its  noble 
tone  of  conciliation  between  sacred  tradition  and  a 
progressive  culture,  between  authority  and  reason,  be- 
tween the  letter  and  the  spirit  of  religion.  If  Sophocles 
has  been,  on  the  whole,  less  popular  in  the  modern 
world  than  either  Aeschylus  or  Euripides,  one  reason 
may  be  this — there  is  no  other  Greek  poet  whose 
genius  belongs  so  peculiarly  to  the  best  Greek  time. 
Aeschylus  has  an  element  of  Hebrew  grandeur,  Euri- 
pides has  strong  elements  of  modern  pathos  and 
romance ;  these  things  easily  come  home  to  us.  But 
in  order  fully  to  appreciate  Sophocles,  we  must  place 
ourselves  in  sympathy  with  the  Greek  mind  in  its 
most  characteristic  modes  of  thought  and  with  the 
Greek  sense  of  beauty  in  its  highest  purity. 

36.  Euripides  was  born  in  480  B.C.,  the  year  in 
which  the  Greeks  conquered  the  Persians  at  Salamis. 
He  was  therefore  forty-five  years  younger  than  Aeschy- 
lus, and  only  fifteen  years  younger  than  Sophocles.  But 
Euripides  is  much  further  from  both  Aeschylus  and 
Sophocles  than  Sophocles  is  from  Aeschylus.  He 
represents  a  new  order  of  ideas  and  a  different  con- 
ception of  the  dramatist's  art.  His  father  Mnesarchus, 
who  gave  him  a  liberal  education — not  a  very  cheap 
luxury  at  Athens — was  probably  of  better  birth  and 


chap,  i.]  THE  DRAMA.  89 

fortune  than  is  implied  in  the  jests  of  Comedy  about 
the  poet's  mother  Clito  having  been  a  herb-seller.  The 
young  Euripides  was  meant  at  first  to  be  a  professional 
athlete ;  at  seventeen  he  tried  painting ;  at  twenty-five 
he  brought  out  his  first  tragedy.  He  was  thirty-nine 
before  he  gained  the  first  prize;  and  during  a  poetical 
career  of  nearly  fifty  years  he  gained  it  only  five  times 
in  all. 

37.  The  comic  poet  Aristophanes  lashed  him  with 
unsparing  mockery  as  an  atheist,  a  quibbler,  and  a  bad 
artist.  His  domestic  life  seems  to  have  been  unhappy, 
and  his  poetry  contains  many  bitter  sayings  about 
women,  though  few  could  express  female  emotion  more 
tenderly.  The  extreme  democracy  which  set  in  during 
the  Peloponnesian  War  was  not  to  his  taste,  and  he 
speaks  of  the  small  farmers,  who  keep  clear  of  the 
public  assembly,  as  those  'who  alone  save  the  coun- 
try.' Altogether  it  is  not  strange  that  he  should  have 
left  Athens  about  409  B.C.,  and  taken  up  his  abode  in 
Macedonia  with  Archelaus, — a  king  whom  he  compli- 
ments on  putting  down  brigands,  and  who  liked  to 
draw  clever  Greeks  to  his  court.  Here  Euripides  died 
in  406, — a  few  months  before  Sophocles,  who  honoured 
his  brother  poet's  memory,  in  his  next  tragedy,  by 
forbidding  the  actors  to  wear  crowns  or  splendid 
dresses. 

38.  Of  the  92  dramas  that  went  under  the  name  of 
Euripides,  75  (including  8  satyr-plays)  were  thought 
genuine  by  the  old  critics :  we  have  1 7.  The 
Alcestis,  the  oldest  of  these  (438  B.C.),  tells  how 
Alcestis  died  to  save  the  life  of  her  husband  Ad- 
metus,  and  was  brought  back  from  the  grave  by 
Heracles.  Medea  (431  B.C.)  is  the  princess  of  Colchis, 
who  for  love  of  Jason  has  shown  him  how  to  win  the 
golden  fleece,  and  has  fled  with  him  to  his  own  land ; 
but  he  has  forsaken  her  for  Glauce,  daughter  of  Creon 
king  of  Corinth.  Medea,  by  her  magic  arts,  destroys 
his  bride,  slays  the  children  whom  she  had  borne  to 


9©  GREEK  LITERATURE.  [part  n. 

Jason,  and  is  carried  through  the  air,  in  an  en- 
chanted car,  to  Athens.  The  Hippolytas  (428  B.C.) — a 
play  which  gained  the  first  prize — tells  how  that  son 
of  Theseus  was  cursed  by  his  father,  and  perished, 
when  his  stepmother  Phaedra  had  falsely  accused  him 
of  assailing  her  honour ;  and  how  Theseus,  when  his 
son  is  dying  before  his  eyes,  learns  the  truth,  too  late, 
from  Artemis,  the  goddess  of  chastity.  The  play 
alludes  to  the  recent  death  of  Pericles  (429  b.c). 
Racine  used  this  plot  in  his  Phedre.  The  Hecuba 
(425  b.c.)  sets  forth  the  vengeance  of  the  widowed 
queen  of  Troy  on  Polymestor,  who  had  slain  her  son 
Polydorus  and  carried  off  her  daughter  Polyxena. 
The  Andromache  (424 — 422  B.C.  ?)  turns  on  the  for- 
tunes of  her  who  was  once  Hector's  wife  and  is  now 
the  captive  of  Neoptolemus,  son  of  Achilles.  It  bears 
the  mark  of  the  Peloponnesian  War  in  a  celebrated 
invective  against  the  Spartan  character. 

39.  The  Ion  (424 — 421),  one  of  the  finest  plays, 
of  which  the  scene  is  laid  at  Delphi,  unfolds  how  Ion, 
founder  of  the  Ionian  race  and  of  the  Attic  tribes,  was 
in  truth  the  son  of  Apollo  by  Creusa  daughter  of 
Erectheus.  The  glow  of  feeling  for  Athenian  glory 
makes  this  play  akin  to  the  three  next.  We  might 
almost  compare  the  group  to  those  histories  which 
Shakspere  dedicated  to  the  glory  of  England  before 
he  turned  to  the  works  of  his  ripest  art.  In  the 
Suppliants  (420 — 417  b.c?)  Athens  appears  as  the 
champion  of  humanity  against  Creon,  king  of  Thebes, 
who  has  refused  burial  to  the  Argive  warriors  slain 
before  its  walls.  So,  too,  in  the  Heracleidae  (of  like 
date),  Athens  becomes  a  city  of  refuge  to  the  children 
of  Heracles,  persecuted  by  Eurystheus,  once  their 
dead  father's  taskmaster.  The  Mad  Heracles  (420 — 
417  b.c?)  tells  how  Heracles,  driven  mad  by  his 
enemy,  the  goddess  Hera  (Juno),  murders  his  wife 
Megara  and  his  children,  and  on  recovering  his  senses, 
is  going  to  kill  himself;  when  king  Theseus  soothes 


chap   i.]  THE  DRAMA.  91 

his  despair,  and  persuades  him  to  seek  grace  and  peace 
at  Athens. 

40.  Iphigenia  among  the  Tauri,  a  very  noble  tragedy, 
of  uncertain  date,  belongs  at  least  to  the  poet's  later 
period.  The  scene  is  laid  at  Balaclava  in  the  Crimea. 
Iphigenia,  rescued  by  the  miraculous  intervention  of 
Artemis  from  the  death  to  which  her  father  had 
doomed  her,  has  become  a  priestess  in  the  temple  of 
that  goddess,  where  human  victims  are  sacrificed.  She 
is  called  upon  to  immolate  two  strangers,  when  she 
discovers  them  to  be  her  brother  Orestes  and  his  friend 
Pylades.  She  plans  their  escape ;  and  finally,  by  com- 
mand of  the  goddess  Athene,  Thoas,  the  king  of  the 
land,  allows  all  three  to  go  back  to  Greece,  where 
they  found  the  worship  of  Artemis  at  Halae  and 
Brauron  in  Attica.  The  Troades  (415  B.C.)  is  con- 
cerned with  the  sorrows  of  noble  Trojan  dames, 
Hecuba,  Andromache,  Cassandra,  just  after  the  fall  of 
Troy.  The  Helen  (412  B.C.)  turns  on  the  story,  made 
popular  by  the  lyric  poet  Stesichorus  in  his  '  recanta- 
tion,' that  only  a  wraith  of  Helen  went  to  Troy ;  the 
real  Helen  went  to  Egypt,  and  was  rescued  from  its 
king  Theoclymenus  by  a  trick  of  her  disguised  lord, 
Menelaus. 

41.  The  Phoenissae  (411  B.C.)  deals  with  the  war 
levied  against  Thebes  by  the  Argives,  in  support  of 
the  claim  of  Polyneices  to  the  throne  against  that  of 
his  brother  Eteocles.  The  chorus  consists  of  '  Phoe- 
nician Maidens,'  brought  from  Tyre  to  serve  in  the 
temple  of  Apollo  at  Delphi,  and  detained  at  Thebes 
by  the  outbreak  of  the  war;  probably  Euripides 
wished  to  vary  from  the  'Seven  against  Thebes'  of 
Aeschylus,  in  which  the  chorus  is  of  Theban  wo- 
men. The  Electra  (410  B.C.),  on  the  same  theme 
as  the  Choephori  of  Aeschylus  and  the  Electra  of 
Sophocles,  well  illustrates  the  poet's  manner.  His  Elec- 
tra is  a  reduced  gentlewoman,  living  in  the  cottage 
of  a  worthy  man  with  whom  she  has  gone  through  the 


92  GREEK  LITERATURE.  [part  II. 

forms  of  marriage.  In  the  Orestes  (408  B.C.)  Apollo 
rescues  Helen  from  the  sword  of  Orestes,  who  has 
gone  mad  after  murdering  his  mother. 

42.  The  Iphigenia  at  Aulis  and  the  Bacchae  were 
brought  out  after  the  poet's  death  by  his  son,  the  younger 
Euripides.  The  former  shows  how  Iphigenia,  doomed 
by  her  father  Agamemnon  to  be  sacrificed  at  Aulis  in 
order  that  the  wind  might  become  fair  for  the  Greek 
fleet,  was  rescued  by  the  goddess  Artemis,  who  car- 
ried the  maiden  off  to  her  temple  among  the  Tauri  in 
the  Crimea.  In  the  Bacchae  ('female  Bacchants'), 
Pentheus,  king  of  Thebes,  arrests  the  disguised  god 
Dionysus,  who  has  brought  his  wild  bacchanal  revelry 
among  the  Thebans.  But  the  god  takes  a  terrible 
vengeance.  The  king  is  rent  in  pieces  by  his  own 
mother  Agave  and  her  companions,  in  the  frenzy  of 
their  bacchant  orgies.  This  wonderful  tragedy  has  all 
through  it  a  flashing  of  divine  light,  a  Dionysiac  glory  of 
joy  or  terror,  which  is  sometimes  more  oriental  than 
Greek.  It  was  composed  or  finished  in  Macedonia — 
in  that  northern  region  where  the  Thracian  bacchants 
were  said  to  have  rent  Orpheus  in  pieces;  and  it  has 
the  true  fire  of  their  worship.  On  that  summer  even- 
ing in  the  Asiatic  camp  when  the  gory  head  of  the 
Roman  Crassus  was  brought  to  the  Parthian  general's 
tent,  it  was  brought  to  the  sound  of  the  verses  in 
which  the  Agave  of  Euripides  vaunts  her  ghastly 
trophy. 

43.  The  Cyclops  is  the  only  specimen  of  a  satyr- 
drama  that  we  have.  It  turns  on  the  adventure  of 
Odysseus  with  Polyphemus,  and  has  a  good  deal  of 
rollicking  buffoonery,  but  little  wit,  and  is  not  too 
short  at  700  lines.  The  Bhesus,  which  used  to  be 
attributed  to  Euripides,  is  now  generally  supposed  to 
be  by  some  indifferent  poet  of  the  latest  Attic  time. 
Its  theme  is  the  midnight  raid  of  Odysseus  and 
Diomede  on  the  tents  of  the  Thracian  Rhesus  at  Troy. 

44.  Euripides  has   been  the  most  generally  popu- 


chap,  i.]  THE  DRAMA.  93 

lar  of  the  three  tragedians ;  his  homeliness  and  his 
unrestrained  pathos  bring  him  nearer  to  every-day 
life.  But  in  his  hands  Tragedy  loses  that  ideal  beauty 
which  Sophocles  had  raised  to  perfection.  Euripides 
cared  less  to  make  his  play  a  harmonious  whole.  He 
relied  more  on  particular  scenes  or  situations.  As  his 
drama  was  less  artistically  planned,  he  was  obliged  to 
help  it  out  by  mechanical  devices.  One  of  these  was 
a  '■prologue''  in  the  special  sense — a  long  set  speech  at 
the  opening  of  the  piece,  in  which  the  actor  gives  a 
sketch  of  the  facts  which  it  is  needful  for  the  spectators 
to  know.  Another  was  the  '  god  from  a  machine,'—  a 
deity  brought  in  suddenly  to  cut  some  knot  in  the 
action.  'Sad  Electra's  poet,'  as  Milton  called  him, 
excelled  in  pathetic  power,  and  especially  in  expressing 
the  sorrow  or  tenderness  of  women ;  though  he  never 
drew  a  woman  so  noble  or  so  nobly  tender  as  the 
Antigone  of  Sophocles.  Kings  and  heroes  in  rags  or 
on  crutches,  heroes  and  heroines  bathed  in  tears, 
lamentations  long  drawn  out,  abound  in  his  plays ;  and 
his  skill  in  working  on  the  feelings  led  Aristotle  to  call 
him,  not,  indeed,  the  greatest  dramatist,  but  '  the  most 
tragic '  of  the  poets.  The  songs  of  the  Chorus  in  Euri- 
pides have  less  to  do  with  the  action  than  in  Aeschy- 
lus or  Sophocles ;  and  he  made  much  use  of  lyric 
monodies,  plaintive  or  sentimental  airs  for  one  voice. 

45.  He  was  deeply  influenced  by  Anaxagoras,  who 
taught  that  Intelligence  (nous)  is  the  supreme  principle 
by  which  matter  has  been  reduced  to  order.  Euripides 
is  sometimes  inclined  to  identify  Zeus  with  this  Intelli- 
gence. Sometimes  he  leans  to  pantheism,  and  makes 
Zeus  '  the  vast  aether  that  holds  earth  in  his  soft  em- 
brace.' But  on  one  point  he  is  clear  :  '  If  the  gods  do 
anything  base,  they  are  not  gods.'  Aristophanes  most 
unjustly  said  of  him,  'he  has  brought  men  over  to 
believe  that  there  are  no  gods.'  Euripides  was  versed 
in  those  new  studies  of  rhetoric  and  logic  which  the 
old  school  hated.     He  frequently  mars  his  dialogue 


94  GREEK  LITERATURE.  [part  n. 

with  rhetorical  argument,  but  it  was  unfair  to  accuse 
him  of  recommending  dishonest  casuistry.  One  of 
his  lines,  for  instance,  was  constantly  quoted  against 
him :  '  My  tongue  has  sworn,  but  my  mind  is  not 
bound  by  the  oath.'  If,  however,  we  look  at  the  con- 
text in  the  Hippolytus,  we  find  the  poet's  meaning  to 
be  that  a  man  is  not  morally  bound  by  a  promise 
extracted  from  him  on  false  pretences. 

Euripides  was  a  great  picturesque  dramatist.  In  the 
Bacchae  he  has  given  us  a  romantic  drama  of  such 
brilliant  fancy  as  we  find  in  no  Greek  poet  except 
Aristophanes,  and  the  same,  quality  belongs  in  large 
measure  to  the  Ion.  With  this  gift,  and  with  his  ten- 
der pathos,  he  can  never  lose  his  charm  for  the  modern 
world. 

46.  Aeschylus  first  gained  the  tragic  prize  in  484, 
Sophocles  in  468,  Euripides  in  442.  The  great  tragic 
art  of  Athens  was  completely  developed  in  less  than 
50  years.  Similarly,  in  England,  the  space  between 
Marlowe's  Tambur/aitie  in  1587  and  Ford's  Per  kin 
Warbeck  in  1634  saw  the  whole  of  a  great  dramatic 
literature  created.  But,  apart  from  the  rapidity  of  the 
growth,  there  are  two  things  which  distinguish  Athe- 
nian drama — its  originality,  and  its  marvellous  fertility. 
Drama  has  arisen  spontaneously  elsewhere,  and  not 
among  Indo-Europeans  alone.  The  Chinese  did  not 
borrow  their  drama.  The  cousins  of  the  Greeks  in 
India  created  drama  of  high  merit.  But  the  Greeks 
of  Attica  were  the  first  people  who  made 
drama  a  complete  and  beautiful  work  of  art. 
And  the  31  tragedies  which  have  been  saved  to  us 
are  but  a  fraction  of  a  vast  literature.  Many  of  the 
best  plays  that  we  have  were  vanquished  by  rivals  of 
which  the  very  names  are  lost.  There  must  have 
been  many  tragic  poets  who,  in  the  estimation  of 
their  contemporaries,  were  nearly  on  a  par  with  the 
great  three ;  Agathon,  for  instance,  the  friend  of 
Socrates  and  Plato,  probably  was  so. 


chap,  i.]  THE  DRAMA.  95 

47.  Comedy  was  twin-born  with  Tragedy;  it 
sprang  from  the  same  worship  of  Dionysus;  but  it 
was  later  in  reaching  its  maturity.  A  worship  founded 
on  the  personification  of  natural  forces  necessarily  con- 
secrates mirth  as  well  as  mourning,  for  it  consists  in 
the  impassioned  observation  of  contrasts.  If  the  dark- 
ening of  the  year,  the  withering  of  the  leaves,  the 
freezing  of  the  earth,  claim  a  sympathetic  sorrow,  then 
a  sympathetic  joy  must  welcome  the  larger  light  of 
spring,  the  sprouting  of  leaves,  the  ground  newly  clad 
with  grass  and  flowers.  In  Greek  worship  mysterious 
awe  and  daring  jest  were  often  neighbours ;  but  in  no 
worship  were  they  nearer  to  each  other  than  in  that 
of  Dionysus.  Frolicsome  banter,  the  outbreak  of 
animal  spirits  that  have  been  repressed,  fitly  greet  the 
returning  sunshine  of  the  god's  fortune  as  it  breaks 
through  the  passing  cloud. 

48.  '  Comedy'  '  the  song  of  the  village,'  carries  us 
back  to  the  gay  vintage  feast  which  the  country  people 
kept  with  feasting  and  dancing,  with  song  and  jest.  The 
graver  hymns  sung  at  such  festivals  were  taken  up,  we 
saw,  by  Arion,  arranged  artistically  for  a  regular  chorus, 
and  thus  made  the  germ  of  Tragedy.  The  light, 
humorous  songs — the  pleasantry  and  burlesque — were 
long  left  to  be  extemporised  by  the  people.  But  these, 
too,  came  to  be  set  for  a  regular  chorus,  holding  a  dia- 
logue with  an  actor  on  the  stage.  And  here,  too,  the 
first  step  was  taken  by  the  Dorians.  But  the  Dorians, 
who  had  a  turn  for  broad  drollery  and  homely  satire, 
went  a  step  further  in  Comedy  than  in  Tragedy.  They 
dramatised  the  dialogue  of  '  comic '  chorus  and  actor 
into  short  farces.  Susarion,  who  exhibited  such  farces 
in  Attica  about  580  B.C.,  was  a  Dorian  of  Megara;  and 
it  is  noteworthy  that  in  later  days  the  Sicilian  Megara, 
a  colony  of  its  namesake  in  Greece  Proper,  was  the 
birthplace  of  the  comic  poet  Epicharmus  (450  B.C.). 
There  was  a  recognised  type  of  Megarian  farce.  A 
comic  writer  of  about  480  b.c.  says  that  he  disdains 

9 


96  GREEK  LITER  A  TURE.  [part  ii. 

to  make  his  comedy  Megarian  ;  and  Aristophanes  him- 
self deprecates  a  joke  stolen  from  Megara.  These 
Megarian  farces — like  those  of  the  lively  Sicilians — 
probably  abounded  in  broad  fun,  which  the  Athenian 
sense  of  humour  would  have  found  tiresome.  After 
Susarion,  we  hear  of  no  considerable  comic  poet  till 
the  Attic  Chionides,  about  488  b.c. 

49.  Attic  Comedy,  in  its  artistic  form,  began 
about  470  b.c.  Aristophanes  names  Magnes  as  the 
earliest  of  his  predecessors,  and  describes  how,  with 
all  his  versatility,  he  failed  to  keep  the  favour  of 
the  fickle  crowd.  The  first  great  name  is  Cratinus 
(448  b.c),  who  'was  borne  on  a  full  tide  of  praise.' 
Crates,  nearly  his  contemporary,  pleased  Athens  by 
his  glowing  fancy  and  his  'most  dainty  conceits.' 
Eupolis,  whose  first  play  was  brought  out  in  429  B.C., 
directed  a  satire  as  bitter,  if  not  as  witty,  as  that 
of  his  rival  Aristophanes  against  the  vices  of  the 
day.  One  of  his  best-known  pieces  was  a  savage 
attack  on  a  profligate  set  of  which  Alcibiades  was  the 
centre. 

50.  Aristophanes  was  probably  born  about 
448  B.C.  His  father  Philippus  owned  property  in 
Aegina;  and  there  is  no  reason  to  doubt  the  son's 
claim  to  Athenian  citizenship,  though  his  enemy,  the 
demagogue  Cleon,  seems  to  have  indicted  him  more 
than  once  as  a  usurper  of  civic  rights.  He  tells  us 
himself  how  fully  he  realised  that  careful  preparation 
was  needful  for  a  poet  who  wished  to  keep  the  favour  of 
Athens.  He  had  seen  his  predecessors  suffer  from 
the  people's  inconstancy.  It  was  his  maxim  that  one 
should  serve  an  apprenticeship  as  both  oarsman  and 
steersman  before  one  took  command  of  a  ship.  But 
when,  at  the  early  age  of  twenty-one,  he  did  come 
forward,  he  kept  his  place. 

For  nearly  40  years  Aristophanes  was  the  great 
burlesque  critic  of  Athenian  life,  political,  intellectual, 
moral  and  social.     We  have  only  n  of  the  54  come- 


chap.  I.]  THE  DRAMA.  97 

dies  which  he  is  said  to  have  written,  and  these  fall 
into  three  groups. 

51.  The  plays  of  the  first  group  use  unre- 
stricted licence  of  satire.  His  career  began  with  two 
plays  now  lost;  the  Banqueters  (427  B.C.),  a  contrast 
between  the  Old  School  and  the  New;  the  Babylonians 
(426  B.C.),  a  satire  on  the  treatment  of  the  allies  of 
Athens  by  the  demagogues.  Then  came  our  Achar- 
nians  (425  B.C.)— a  plea  for  the  peace-party  against 
the  war-party,  the  latter  being  represented  by  the 
men  of  Achamae,  whose  vineyards  have  been 
laid  waste  by  the  Peloponnesians.  In  the  Knights 
(424  B.C.)  he  continues  his  attack,  begun  in  the 
'Babylonians,'  on  the  demagogue  Cleon.  No  mask- 
maker  could  be  found  to  take  the  risk  of  caricaturing 
Cleon;  'but  you  will  know  him,'  says  the  poet, — 'the 
house  is  clever.'  In  the  Clouds  (423  b.  c.)  he  attacks 
the  new  spirit  of  inquiry  and  culture.  Physical  philo- 
sophers like  Anaxagoras,  teachers  of  rhetoric  like 
Protagoras,  are  classed  together  under  the  common 
name  of  'sophist;'  and  Socrates  is  taken  as  the  type 
of  the  whole  tendency.  In  the  Wasps  (422  B.C.),  on 
which  Racine  founded  Les  Plaideurs,  we  are  shown 
how  the  demagogues  treat  their  deluded  allies,  the 
citizens  who  form  the  large  juries  in  the  law-courts. 
The  Peace  (421  b.c.)  resumes  the  purpose  of  the 
'  Acharnians.'  Trygaeus,  a  distressed  Athenian,  flies 
up  to  heaven  on  a  beetle,  and  there  finds  the 
gods  engaged  in  pounding  the  Greek  States  in  a 
mortar.  He  succeeds  in  liberating  the  goddess 
Peace  from  her  prison,  and  winning  her  blessings  for 
Greece. 

52.  The  plays  of  the  second  group  differ  from 
those  of  the  first  in  the  greater  reserve  with  which 
political  satire  is  employed.  In  the  Birds  (414  B.C.), 
two  enterprising  Athenians  persuade  the  birds  to  build 
a  cloud-city  by  which  the  gods  are  cut  off  from  men, 
and  so  brought  to  terms.     It  is  a  medley  of  sportive 


98  GREEK  LITERATURE.  [part  n. 

fancies,  full  of  allusions  to  the  Athenian  follies  of  the 
day,  and  especially  to  the  expedition  against  Sicily. 
The  Lysistrata  appeared  just  before,  the  Thesmo- 
phoriazusae  just  after,  the  reign  of  terror  established 
by  the  Four  Hundred  in  411  B.C.  In  the  former,  the 
women  seize  the  government,  with  a  view  to  ending 
the  Peloponnesian  War.  In  the  latter,  Euripides  is 
tried  and  condemned  at  the  female  festival  of  the 
Thesmophoria.  The  Frogs  (405)  came  out  when 
Athens  was  exhausted  by  her  last  effort  in  the  war, — 
a  few  months  before  her  final  defeat  at  Aegospotami. 
Euripides  and  Sophocles  had  both  recently  died. 
Euripides  and  Aeschylus  are  represented  contending 
for  the  tragic  prize  among  the  dead,  and  the  prize  is 
won  by  Aeschylus. 

53.  The  third  group  consists  of  two  plays,  in 
which  the  old  strain  of  personal  satire  has  almost  dis- 
appeared. The  Ecdesiazusae  (392)  shows  how  the 
'Women  in  parliament'  contrived  to  frame  a  new  con- 
stitution. The  Plulus  (388  B.C.)  relates  how  eye-sight 
was  restored  to  the  god  of  wealth,  who  proceeds  to 
enrich  the  good  and  beggar  the  wicked. 

54.  Spirit  of  the  great  Attic  Comedy. — Attic 
Comedy,  as  we  have  it  in  Aristophanes,  is  a  public 
commentary  on  the  every-day  life  of  Athens,  in  great 
things  and  small.  Politics  and  society,  statesmen  and 
private  persons,  are  criticised  with  unsparing  freedom. 
The  satire  is  unscrupulously  personal.  Old  Athens 
knew  no  respect  for  private  life  when  it  seemed  to 
be  for  the  good  of  the  city  that  the  vices  of  a  citizen 
should  be  lashed.  At  the  carnival  of  Dionysus  the 
poet  had,  as  it  were,  a  public  charter  to  speak  his 
whole  mind  to  the  citizens.  Such  a  power  was  sure 
to  be  sometimes  abused,  and  the  license  of  Comedy 
was  more  than  once  restrained  by  legal  enactment. 
The  special  weapon  of  the  old  Attic  Comedy  was  its 
power  of  holding  up  a  man  or  a  policy  to  admiration 
or  ridicule  before  some  20,000  legislators.     Broad  as 


chap.  I.]  THE  DRAMA.  99 

the  farce  might  be,  the  effect  on  public  opinion  was 
Often,  probably,  very  great. 

55.  The  Chorus  in  Comedy  consisted,  not  of 
12  or  15  persons  as  in  Tragedy,  but  usually  of  24. 
They  were  dressed  as  fantastically  as  the  figures  in  a 
modern  pantomine  or  extravaganza.  Thus,  in  the 
'  Wasps]  the  Chorus  were  dressed  to  look  as  much  as 
possible  like  huge  wasps,  pinched  at  the  waist  and 
armed  with  skewers  for  stings ;  in  the  Birds,  the 
Chorus  were  gorgeously  arrayed  in  24  different  kinds 
of  plumage.  This  burlesque  element  was  quite  in 
keeping  with  the  frolic  of  a  Dionysiac  festival.  At 
some  point  suited  for  a  pause  in  the  action — usually 
towards  the  middle  of  the  play — the  Chorus  faced 
round  towards  the  spectators,  drawing  nearer  to  them. 
This  was  their  parabasis,  or  'coming  forward'  to  the 
house — a  name  given  especially  to  the  address  which 
the  leader  of  the  chorus  then  spoke,  setting  forth  the 
merits  or  grievances  of  the  poet,  or  his  views  on  public 
affairs.  These  lines  from  the  Peace1  will  give  a  notion 
of  the  form  and  tone.  Aristophanes  is  claiming  to  have 
elevated  Comedy : — 

It  was  he  that  indignantly  swept  from  the  stage  the  paltry  ignoble  device 
Of  a  Heracles  needy  and  seedy  and  greedy,  a  vagabond  sturdy  and  stout, 
Now  baking  his  bread,  now  swindling  instead,  now  beaten  and  battered  about. 
And  freedom  he  gave  to  the  lacrimose  slave  who  was  wont  with  a  howl  to 

rush  in, 
And  all  for  the  sake  of  a  joke  which  they  make  on  the  wounds  that  disfigure 

his  skin,... 
Such  vulgar  contemptible  lumber  at  once  he  bade  from  the  drama  depart, 
And  then,  like  an  edifice  stately  and  grand,  ht  raised  and  ennobled  the  Art. 

This  interlude  of  the  parabasis  could  be  left  out  when 
it  did  not  suit  the  poet  to  speak  his  mind  freely.  Thus 
the  Lysistrata — on  the  eve  of  the  Revolution  of  the 
Four  Hundred — has  no  parabasis.  And  as  Comedy 
lost  its  old  audacity  of  political  and  personal  satire,  the 
parabasis  was  dropped  altogether.  There  is  none  in 
the  two  latest  plays  of  Aristophanes,  the  Ecclesiazusae 

1  Translated  by  Mr  Rogers. 


ioo  GREEK  LITERATURE.  [part  ii. 

and  the  Plutus.  In  the  Plutus,  indeed,  the  Chorus 
has  no  choral  songs,  but  merely  takes  part  in  the 
dialogue. 

56.  Aristophanes  was  not  only  a  great  satirist  but 
a  great  poet  His  comedies  unite  elements  which 
meet  nowhere  else  in  literature.  There  is  a  play  of 
fancy  as  extravagant  as  in  a  modern  burlesque ;  the 
whole  world  is  turned  topsy-turvy ;  gods  and  mortals 
alike  are  whirled  through  the  motley  riot  of  one  great 
carnival.  There  is  a  humour  as  delicate,  a  literary 
satire  as  keen,  as  the  most  exquisite  wit  could  offer 
to  the  most  subtle  appreciation.  And  there  are  lyric 
strains  of  a  wild  woodland  sweetness  hardly  to  be 
matched  save  in  Shakspere.  Aristophanes  clung  to 
the  old  traditions  of  Athens  with  a  sort  of  jovial,  un- 
reasoning toryism.  Demagogues,  philosophers,  rhe- 
toricians were  his  abomination.  His  ideal  was  the  plain, 
sturdy  citizen  of  the  good  old  school  who  beat  the  Per- 
sians at  Marathon.  He  claims  for  himself,  and  justly, 
that  he  is  outspoken  on  the  side  of  virtue  against  vice. 
But  his  personal  judgments  must  be  taken  with  reserve. 
Thus,  though  an  admirable  critic,  he  was  unfair  to  the 
poet  Euripides ;  and  he  exaggerated  the  case  against  his 
enemy,  Cleon. 

57.  'Old,'  'Middle,'  'New'  Comedy.— The 
Old,  or  great  political,  Comedy  of  Athens,  lasted  from 
about  470  to  390  B.C.,  culminating  and  beginning  to 

*  decline  with  Aristophanes.  The  Middle  Comedy, 
from  about  390  to  320  B.C.,  marked  the  period  of  transi- 
tion from  political  to  purely  social  Comedy.  It  has  no 
longer  the  old  boldness  of  fancy  or  bitterness  of  attack; 
philosophy  and  literature  are  criticised  rather  than  poli- 
tics; the  element  of  choral  music  disappears.  Among 
its  poets  were  Antiphanes,  reputed  the  author  of  260 
pieces,  and  Alexis,  of  245 ;  also  two  sons  of  Aristo- 
phanes, Araros  and  Philippus.  The  New  Comedy, 
vigorous  from  about  320  to  250  B.C.,  was  more  like  our 
modern  Comedy  of  manners.     The   stock  characters 


chap,  ii.]         EARLY  PROSE.     HISTORY.  lot 

were  such  as  the  stern  or  weak  father,  the  son  whose 
follies  are  seconded  by  a  slave  or  a  hungry  parasite,  the 
pettifogger,  active  in  stirring  up  lawsuits,  and  the  gascon- 
ading soldier  of  fortune.  Such  poets  as  Menander, 
Philemon  and  Diphilus,  appear  to  have  excelled  in 
fine  delineation  of  character.  The  Roman  dramatists 
imitated  them.  Julius  Caesar  called  Terence  '  a  half 
Menander  ' — having  his  elegance  of  style,  but  not  his 
comic  force.  In  speaking  of  'Old,'  'Middle,'  'New' 
Comedy,  Ave  must  always  remember  that  they  are 
merely  successive  phases  of  one  unbroken  devel- 
opment, which  followed  necessarily  on  the  decay 
and  final  extinction  of  the  old  political  life  at  Athens. 


CHAPTER  II. 


BEGINNINGS   OF   PROSE   LITERATURE.       HISTORY. 

Early  Ionian  prose-writers,  550 — 450  B.C.  Herodotus,  b.  484, 
d.  428  bc,  or  later.  Thucydides,  b.  471,  d.  about  400. 
Xenophon,  b.  about  431,  d.  354. 

i.  Greek  Poetry  had  matured  its  last  great  form  in 
the  Attic  drama  before  a  true  prose  literature  had 
begun.  The  late  origin  of  literary  prose  in  Greece  is 
partly  explained  by  the  paramount  interest  which  Epic 
poetry  so  long  secured  for  the  legends  of  the  heroic 
past,  and  by  the  ease  with  which  elegiac  or  iambic 
verse  subsequently  responded  to  all  the  needs  of 
expression  felt  by  a  cultivated  and  thoughtful  man. 
In  part  it  is  also  due  to  the  fact  that  Greece  was 
broken  up  into  small  States,  each  busied  with  its 
own  affairs  and  its  own  traditions.  Hence  there 
was  no  such  national  demand  for  a  national  record  as 
might  have  hastened  the  literary  use  of  prose.  Homer 
19* 


102  GREEK  LITERATURE.  [part  ii. 

was  the  national  history.     The  Persian  Wars  first  gave 
to  the  Greeks  a  great  theme  of  common  interest. 

The  delay  in  the  rise  of  prose  literature  was  in  one 
way  a  gain.  So  much  the  wider  and  firmer  became 
that  poetical  basis  on  which  the  culture  of  the  Greeks 
reposed.  The  spiritual  elevation,  the  true  liberality, 
the  nobleness  of  conception  which  belonged  to  the  best 
Greek  character  are  in  some  measure  fruits  of  that  long 
sovereignty  which  great  poetry  had  held  over  the  race. 

2,  Earliest  prose-writers. — Literary  prose, 
like  artistic  poetry,  began  in  Ionia.  About  550  B.C. 
Pherecydes  of  Syros  (who  must  be  distinguished  from 
the  annalist  Pherecydes  of  Leros,  450  B.C.)  set  forth 
his  speculative  theology  in  what  is  usually  regarded  as 
the  earliest  Greek  prose.  The  Ionian  philosophers 
Anaximenes  and  Anaximander  also  wrote  in  prose. 
This  earliest  prose  seems  to  have  been  in  the  form 
of  brief,  sententious  utterances,  either  disjointed  or 
roughly  strung  together,  and  analogous  to  the  pithy 
maxims  ascribed  to  the  '  wise  men '  of  the  same  age. 
Thinkers  who  desired  an  artistic  form  for  their  thought 
still  preferred  verse,  as  did  the  Ionian  philosophers  Xeno- 
phanes  and  Parmenides,  and  the  Sicilian  Empedocles 
in  his  great  poem  '  On  Nature.' 

3.  Towards  the  end  of  the  6th  century  B.C.  prose 
began  to  be  used  with  more  freedom  by  those  Ionian 
writers  who  were  especially  called  logographi, '  nar- 
rators in  prose,'  as  opposed  to  epopoii,  'narrators 
in  verse.'  These  writers  had  two  chief  branches  of 
work.  (1)  They  compiled  the  ancient  myths  or  legends 
of  Greece,  and  especially  the  genealogies  of  the  great 
houses.  (2)  They  combined  geography  with  uncritical 
and  fragmentary  history  in  the  description  of  foreign 
countries,  usually  after  personal  travel.  Essays  in  both 
kinds  were  often  made  by  the  same  writer,  as  by 
Hecataeus  of  Miletus  (500  B.C.),  who  wrote  a  Tour 
of  the  Earth,  and  also  Genealogies,  in  which  he  show- 
ed how  he  himself  had  had  a  god  for  his  sixteenth 


chap,  ii.]        EARLY  PROSE.     HISTORY.  103 

ancestor.  Hellanicus  of  Mitylene  (450  B.C.)  marks 
the  transition  from  mere  compilation  to  more  careful 
work.  He  wrote  a  history  of  Attica,  of  many  other 
places  in  Greece,  and  of  Egypt,  Persia,  Phoenicia; 
and  seems  to  have  been  among  the  first  who  at- 
tempted a  critical  comparison  of  authorities. 

4.  Herodotus,  son  of  Lyxes,  was  born  in  484  B.C. 
at  Halicarnassus  in  Caria.  This  city  was  Dorian,  but 
had  a  large  Ionian  element  in  its  population.  The 
family  of  Herodotus,  a  noble  one,  was  probably 
Dorian ;  but  he  may  have  been  familiar  with  the 
Ionic  dialect  from  his  youth.  At  the  time  of  his 
birth  the  city  was  governed,  under  Persia,  by  Arte- 
misia, the  queen  who  fought  so  bravely  for  Xerxes  at 
Salamis.  Her  grandson  and  successor  Lygdamis  put 
to  death  Panyasis,  the  maternal  uncle  of  Herodotus, — 
a  man  known  in  literature  as  one  of  the  restorers  of 
epic  poetry.  Herodotus,  we  are  told,  fled  from  Lyg- 
damis to  the  Ionian  island  of  Samos ;  returned  to 
Halicarnassus  after  the  tyrant  had  been  driven  out ; 
but  again  left  his  native  place,  and  came  to  Athens 
about  446  b.  c.  Athenian  power,  art  and  poetry  were 
then  at  their  height  under  Pericles.  Herodotus  came 
at  Athens  into  a  society  as  variously  brilliant  as  the 
world  has  ever  seen.  He  was  the  intimate  friend  of 
the  poet  Sophocles;  and  we  have  the  beginning  of 
an  ode  said  to  have  been  addressed  to  him  by  Sopho- 
cles in  440  B.C., — the  year  of  the  Antigone,  a  play 
in  which  Sophocles  alludes  to  a  story  told  by  Hero- 
dotus in  his  third  book.  In  443,  probably,  Herodotus 
went  to  Thurii,  a  colony  founded  by  Athens  on  the 
site  of  Sybaris  in  South  Italy.  He  visited  Athens 
again,  later  than  432,  for  he  saw  the  Propylaea  or 
colonnaded  entrance  of  the  Acropolis,  completed  in 
that  year.  His  death,  probably  at  Thurii,  is  placed  by 
some  as  early  as  428  b.  c,  since  there  are  signs  that 
he  did  not  live  to  revise  his  History ;  by  others,  as  late 
as  406. 


104  GREEK  LrrERATURE.  [part  n. 

5.  The  travels  of  Herodotus,  made  chiefly  from 
Halicarnassus  in  the  earlier  half  of  his  life,  were  ex- 
tensive. Favoured  by  his  two-fold  quality  as  a  Persian 
subject  and  a  Greek  citizen,  he  traversed  almost  the 
whole  of  the  known  world,  from  Ecbatana,  Susa  and 
Babylon  in  the  east  to  South  Italy  in  the  west,  from 
the  northern  shores  of  the  Black  Sea  to  the  first 
cataract  of  the  Nile,  an  area  of  about  1700  square 
miles.  No  Greek  before  him  had  explored  foreign 
lands  so  widely  or  so  intelligently. 

6.  The  History  of  Herodotus  works  up  the 
materials  thus  collected  into  an  artistic  picture  of  the 
world,  grouped  round  a  central  idea.  This  idea  is  the 
great  struggle  between  East  and  West,  between  Asiatic 
and  Greek,  of  which  the  Persian  Wars  formed  the  last 
chapter.  The  History  falls  into  two  chief  parts.  The 
first  five  books  are  an  introduction,  tracing  the  rise 
and  growth  of  the  Persian  power.  The  last  four  books 
relate  the  Persian  invasions  of  Greece  under  Darius 
and  Xerxes. 

Book  1.  contains  the  career  of  Cyrus,  founder  of  the 
Persian  Empire  (560 — 5 29  B.C.).  Books  11.  and  in. 
contain  the  invasion  and  conquest  of  Egypt  by 
Cambyses,  his  death,  and  the  accession  of  Darius, 
with  a  description  of  Egypt  and  the  Egyptians.  Books 
iv.  and  v.  contain  the  Persian  campaigns  in  Scythia 
and  Thrace,  with  descriptions  of  the  countries ;  a 
Persian  expedition  to  Libya,  with  notices  of  that  land 
and  its  Greek  colonists ;  and  the  story  of  the  Ionian 
revolt  from  501  to  498  b.c. 

.  Book  vi.,  after  concluding  the  Ionian  revolt,  re- 
lates the  first  Persian  expedition  against  Greece  in  492, 
and  the  invasion  of  490,  repelled  at  Marathon.  Book 
vii.  relates  the  invasion  of  Xerxes,  to  the  battle  of 
Thermopylae  (480  b.  c);  Book  vin.,  the  battles  of  Arte- 
misium  and  Salamis,  and  the  flight  of  Xerxes  (480) ; 
Book  ix.,  the  battles  of  Plataea  and  Mycale  (479),  the 
retreat  of  the  Persian  general  Mardonius  (479  B.C.), 


chap,  ii.]        EARLY  PROSE.    HISTORY.  105 

and  the   capture   by  the   Greeks   of  Sestos   on   the 
Hellespont. 

7.  The  god  loves  to  cut  down  all  toiuering  things... 
the  god  suffers  none  but  himself  to  be  haughty.  Rash 
haste  ever  goes  before  a  fall ;  but  self-restraint  brings 
blessings,  not  seen  at  the  moment  perhaps,  yet  found  out 
in  due  time.  These  are  the  words  that  Herodotus 
makes  the  wise  Artabanus  speak  to  his  nephew, 
Xerxes,  king  of  Persia,  dissuading  him  from  the  attack 
on  Greece ;  but  Xerxes  answers  him  with  insult. 
They  are  the  key-note  of  the  History.  It  is  a  prose 
tragedy,  which  justifies  the  ways  of  Heaven  to  men 
by  showing  how  sin  is  punished  with  ruin.  According 
to  the  best  accounts,  says  Herodotus,  the  quarrel 
between  barbarian  and  Greek  began  by  Phoenician 
sailors  carrying  off  the  maiden  Io  from  Argos.  Greeks 
retaliated  by  carrying  off  Europe  from  Tyre.  Then 
Greeks  began  wrong  anew  by  taking  Medea  from 
Colchis;  and  next  the  Phrygian  Paris  robbed  the 
Spartan  king  of  Helen.  The  Greeks  sacked  Troy. 
Ages  passed  before  a  strong  champion  of  Asia  arose. 
And,  when  he  came,  his  spirit  was  hateful  to  Heaven. 
Xerxes  was  the  type  of  the  man  whom  the  gods  love 
to  humble, — the  lord  of  all  pleasure,  all  pomp,  all 
power,  one  whom  men  revere  as  a  god  and  who  treats 
men  as  slaves.  From  Susa  to  the  Hellespont,  from 
the  Hellespont  to  the  Gates  of  Greece,  he  moves  on 
with  his  countless  host.  He  is  mad  with  pride.  He 
sends  his  spoilers  against  Delphi.  But  the  god  himself 
beats  them  back.  He  takes  Athens.  But  dark  signs 
hint  that  the  gods  of  Athens  and  Eleusis  are  against 
him.  And  now  his  cup  is  full.  Salamis — Plataea  — 
Mycale — these  three  defeats  are  the  three  falls  which 
Greece  gave  to  Persia,  freedom  to  slavery,  the  justice 
of  the  gods  to  mortal  pride. 

8.  The  originality  of  Herodotus  fairly  entitles  him 
to  be  called,  in  one  sense,  the  'father  of  History.' 
He  has,  of  course,  some  general  traits  in  common  with 


io6  GREEK  LITERATURE.  [part  n. 

the  Ionian  writers  of  his  own  or  an  earlier  day.  Like 
them,  he  records  myths,  though  seldom  quite  uncriti- 
cally; he  describes  foreign  countries  geographically 
and  socially ;  and  he  writes  in  that  Ionic  dialect 
which  was  then  the  recognised  organ  of  literary  prose. 
He  made  direct  use,  too,  of  some  earlier  writers,  such 
as  Hecataeus  and  Hellanicus.  But  no  one  before  him 
had  worked  large  masses  of  facts  into  a  symmetrical 
whole,  with  unity  of  plan  and  thought.  He  was  the 
first  artist  in  prose.  As  a  historian,  he  fails 
chiefly  by  inattention  or  insensibility  to  political  cause 
and  effect.  He  will  account  for  a  great  event  merely 
by  some  accident  which  was  the  immediate  occasion 
of  it,  without  seeking  to  find  any  deeper  source.  And 
he  tells  us  little  or  nothing  about  constitutional  change. 
His  charm  of  style  is  all  the  greater  for  his  almost 
child-like  simplicity,  and  he  is  one  of  the  most  delight- 
ful story-tellers.  His  narrative  flows  on  in  what  the 
Greeks  called  the  running  style,  seldom  attempting 
compact  periods.  Often  he  stops  to  tell  some  quaint 
little  story  by  the  way — like  that  of  Hippocleides, 
a  noble  suitor  for  the  daughter  of  the  great  prince 
Cleisthenes,  who  pained  his  intended  father-in-law  by 
dancing  before  the  company,  and  finally  stood  upon  his 
head.  Cleisthenes,  who  had  hitherto  restrained  him- 
self, exclaimed, — '  Son  of  Tisandrus,  you  have  danced 
off  the  marriage';  but  Hippocleides  replied,  Hippo- 
cleides does  not  care.  Hence,  says  Herodotus,  our  pro- 
verb. 

9.  Thucydides,  born  in  471  B.C.,  was  the  son  of 
Olorus,  an  Athenian  citizen.  This  Olorus  was  pro- 
bably grandson  of  the  Thracian  prince  Olorus,  whose 
daughter  Hegesipyle  married  Miltiades,  the  conqueror 
at  Marathon.  Thucydides  would  thus  be  a  younger 
cousin  of  the  statesman  Cimon.  He  was  forty  years 
of  age  when  the  Peloponnesian  War  began  in  431. 
From  its  beginning,  he  tells  us,  he  foresaw  that  it  was 
destined  to  be  more  momentous  than  any  war  before 


chap,  ii.]        EARLY  PROSE.     HISTORY.  107 

it,  and  watched  its  course  closely,  with  a  view  to 
writing  its  history.  The  turning-point  of  his  life  came 
in  424  B.C.,  the  eighth  year  of  the  war.  He  was  then 
in  command  of  an  Athenian  fleet  off  the  Thracian 
coast.  On  this  coast,  opposite  the  island  of  Thasos, 
Thucydides  possessed  a  property  of  gold-mines.  While 
Thucydides  was  at  ^Thasos  with  his  ships,  the  Spartan 
general  Brasidas  surprised  Amphipolis  on  the  Strymon, 
the  chief  town  held  by  Athens  in  those  parts.  It  was 
a  terrible  disaster.  The  Athenians  deprived  Thucy- 
dides of  his  command.  There  is  no  ground  for 
charging  him  with  anything  so  base  as  the  wish  to 
guard  his  own  estate  at  the  cost  of  his  duty.  But 
it  seems  difficult  to  excuse  him  for  having  been  50 
miles  from  Amphipolis  at  a  time  when  Brasidas  was 
hovering  about  it.  We  do  not  know  that  he  was 
banished.  But  we  know  that  from  423  to  403  he  was 
in  exile  from  Athens.  He  spent  these  20  years  partly 
on  his  property  in  Thrace,  partly  among  the  Pelo- 
ponnesians  and  their  allies, — always  keeping  in  mind 
his  great  purpose,  to  write  the  history  of  the  war. 
He  returned  to  Athens  on  the  restoration  of  the  de- 
mocracy in  403  B.C.  His  death  cannot  have  been 
later  than  396,  and  may  probably  be  placed  about 
400.  According  to  a  contemporary  account,  he  was 
assassinated  in  Thrace ;  his  ashes  were  brought  to 
Athens,  and  laid  in  the  tomb  of  the  house  of  Cimon. 

10.  The  History  of  Thucydides  falls  into  three 
parts,  of  which  the  last  is  unfinished.  1.  The  first 
four  Books,  with  chapters  1 — 18  of  Book  v.,  contain 
the  history  of  the  war  from  its  beginning  in  43 1  to  the 
Peace  of  Nicias  in  421  :  sometimes  called  the  'Archi- 
damian  War,'  from  the  invasions  of  Attica  led  by  Archi- 
damus  king  of  Sparta.  2.  In  Book  v.  (from  chapter  19), 
Books  vi.  and  vn.,  we  have  the  next  eight  years,  com- 
prising that  war  in  the  Peloponnesus  of  which  Argos 
was  the  centre,  and  the  Athenian  expedition  against 
Sicily.     3.    Book  vin.  begins  the  third  chapter  of  the 

10 


i08  GREEK  LITERATURE.  [part  n. 

struggle,  called  the  Decelean  War,  from  the  Spartan 
occupation  of  Decelea  in  Attica  (413  B.C.).  It  would 
naturally  go  down  to  the  battle  of  Aegospotami  (405), 
or  the  surrender  of  Athens  to  Lysander  (404).  But 
Book  viii.  breaks  off  in  the  middle  of  chapter  109, 
shortly  after  the  great  victory  of  the  Athenians  (in  411 
B.C.)  at  Cynossema.  Alleged  differences  of  style,  and 
the  absence  of  set  speeches,  have  brought  suspicion  on 
the  eighth  Book;  but  there  can  be  little  doubt  that 
it  is  the  unfinished  work  of  Thucydides. 

1 1.  Herodotus  was  the  literary  founder  of  History ; 
Thucydides  was  the  first  philosopher  of  History. 
He  seeks  not  only  to  give  an  accurate,  concise  nar- 
rative of  events,  but  also  to  show  the  causes  from 
which  the  events  sprang,  the  political  or  moral  lessons 
which  they  convey.  Thus  he  is  not  content  with 
saying  that  the  Peloponnesian  War  arose  from  the 
disputes  between  Athens  and  Corinth  about  Epi- 
damnus  and  Potidaea.  He  goes  back  beyond  these 
immediate  and  obvious  causes  to  deeper,  more  es- 
sential causes — the  fear  which  the  empire  of  Athens 
had  spread  throughout  Greece,  and  the  impulse  of 
Sparta  to  come  forward  as  the  champion  of  Greek 
freedom  against  Athenian  aggression.  When  he  has 
given,  in  a  few  bold  touches,  a  picture  of  the  strife 
between  oligarchs  and  democrats  at  Corcyra,  he  ana- 
lyses the  state  of  political  morals  out  of  which  the 
strife  arose.  A  passionless,  judicial  tone  prevails 
throughout.  He  seldom  awards  personal  praise  or 
blame.  The  absence  of  romance  in  my  History,  he  says, 
will  perhaps  lose  it  the  popular  ear.  But  it  will  be  enough 
if  it  is  judged  useful  by  those  who  may  desire  an  accurate 
knowledge  of  the  past  as  a  clue  to  that  future  which,  in  all 
human  probability,  must  repeat  or  resemble  the  past.  It 
has  been  composed,  not  as  the  exploit  of  an  hour,  but  as 
a  possession  for  all  time. 

12.  And   such  it  truly  is;   Thucydides   has  well 
been  called  'the  historian  of  our  common  humanity, 


chap.  II.]        EARLY  PROSE.     HISTORY.  109 

the  teacher  of  abstract  political  wisdom.'  The  literary 
characteristics  of  his  work  are  also  striking.  Much  of 
the  closest  thought  is  conveyed  in  set  speeches,  put 
into  the  mouths  of  the  historical  persons.  Some  of 
these  speeches  represent  the  general  purport  of 
speeches  actually  made.  Others  are  altogether  the 
invention  of  Thucydides.  But  the  thoughts  and  senti- 
ments are  always  such  as,  in  the  judgment  of  Thucy- 
dides, the  particular  speaker  might  have  expressed. 
The  longest  and  most  elaborate  speech  is  the  Funeral 
Oration  spoken  by  Pericles  over  those  who  fell  in  the 
first  year  of  the  war — a  magnificent  picture  of  the 
Athenian  spirit  in  politics  and  in  social  intercourse. 
Like  the  other  speeches,  it  is  an  essay  by  Thucydides 
himself  in  the  fashionable  rhetoric  of  the  day,  which 
was  somewhat  stiff,  and  too  fond  of  verbal  contrasts, 
but  capable  both  of  grandeur  and  of  pathos. 

13.  A  greater  master  of  stern  pathos  than  Thucy- 
dides never  lived,  and  this  is  partly  because  he  never 
says  too  much.  He  was  not  only  a  political  philo- 
sopher, but  also  an  artist  who  felt  the  tragic  force  of 
his  story.  Thus  he  fixes  our  attention  on  Athens  at 
the  summit  of  her  cruelty  and  insolence — in  the  mas- 
sacre at  Melos — just  before  he  passes  to  the  terrible 
narrative  of  her  ruin  in  Sicily.  His  style  has  many 
faults.  It  is  often  involved,  abrupt,  obscure.  But  no 
writer  has  grander  bursts  of  rugged  eloquence,  or  more 
of  that  greatness  which  is  given  by  sustained  intensity 
of  noble  thought  and  feeling. 

14.  Xenophon,  through  his  own  writings,  is 
better  known  to  us  as  a  man  than  almost  any  Greek 
author.  The  story  that  Socrates  saved  his  life  at  the 
battle  of  Delium  (424  B.C.)  has  caused  his  birth  to  be 
dated  about  445  B.C.  '  But  the  story  is  probably  a 
fiction.  From  his  own  words  it  seems  clear  that  he 
cannot  have  been  more  than  about  thirty  in  401.  His 
brother  Gryllus  was  an  Athenian  citizen  of  good 
position,    and   gave   him   a   liberal    education.      He 


no  GREEK  LITERATURE.  [part  ii. 

became  the  disciple  of  Socrates,  whose  teaching  was 
the  basis  of  his  principles  throughout  life.  In  the 
spring  of  401  B.C.,  at  the  advice  of  his  Boeotian  friend 
Proxenus,  he  went  to  Sardis  in  Asia  Minor,  and  joined 
an  expedition,  including  more  than  10,000  Greek 
mercenaries,  which  the  young  Persian  prince  Cyrus 
was  preparing  to  lead  into  Persia,  for  the  purpose  of 
wresting  the  crown  from  his  elder  brother  Arta- 
xerxes  II. 

15.  Xenophon  has  told  the  story  of  this  expe- 
dition in  one  of  the  most  fascinating  books  in  the 
world,  his  Anabasis,  in  seven  books.  The  title  means 
'a  march  up  {from  the  coast)'  into  the  interior,  and 
properly  applies  only  to  the  first  part,  as  far  as  the 
battle  at  Cunaxa  (a  name  not  mentioned  by  Xeno- 
phon, but  given  by  Plutarch)  about  50  miles  from 
Babylon,  where  Cyrus  was  killed  (Sept.  401).  The 
remaining  and  larger  part  of  the  work  ought  rather  to 
be  called  Catabasis,  the  march  doiu7i  to  the  sea.  Soon 
after  the  death  of  Cyrus,  the  Persian  satrap  Tissaphernes 
treacherously  seized  five  of  the  Greek  generals.  The 
Greeks  were  now  in  terrible  danger.  That  night  Xeno- 
phon— who  had  not  hitherto  been  either  an  officer  or  a 
private  soldier,  but  simply  an  'unattached'  volunteer — 
dreamed  that  his  father's  house  was  set  on  fire  by 
lightning.  What  did  this  portend  ?  That  the  king  of 
Persia — figured  by  the  King  of  Heaven — was  to  de- 
stroy them  ?  Or,  that,  in  their  dark  hour,  a  great  light 
was  to  come  to  them  from  on  high?  Xenophon 
started  up,  awoke  the  surviving  leaders,  and  in  a  mid- 
night council  of  war,  gave  them  heart,  by  his  plain 
earnest  eloquence,  to  take  measures  for  the  common 
safety. 

16.  Next  day,  formed  in  a  hollow  square  with 
the  baggage  in  the  centre,  they  began  the  Retreat. 
Moving  along  the  Tigris,  past  the  site  of  the  ancient 
Nineveh  and  the  modern  Mossul,  they  came  into 
the   country  of  the   Carduchi,  or   Kurds,  who,  like 


chap.  II.]        EARLY  PROSE.     HISTORY.  Ill 

modern  Kurds,  rolled  down  stones  on  them  from  the 
top  of  their  mountain-passes ;  then  through  Armenia 
and  Georgia.  At  last  one  day — in  the  fifth  month — 
February,  400  b.c. — Xenophon,  who  was  with  the  rear- 
guard, heard  a  great  shouting  among  the  men  who 
had  reached  the  top  of  a  hill  in  front.  He  thought 
they  saw  an  enemy.  He  mounted  his  horse,  and 
galloped  forward  with  some  cavalry.  As  they  came 
nearer,  they  could  make  out  the  shout:  it  was  ithe  sea! 
the  sea!'  There,  far  off,  was  the  silver  gleam  of  the 
Euxine.  After  the  long,  intense  strain  of  toil  and 
danger,  the  men  burst  into  tears;  like  true  Greek 
children  of  the  sea  they  knew  now  that  they  were  in 
sight  of  home.  Two  days'  march  brought  them  to 
the  coast  at  Trapezus,  a  Greek  city,  the  modern  Tre- 
bizond;  there  they  sacrificed  to  the  gods,  especially 
to  Zeus  the  Preserver  and  Heracles  the  Guide.  This 
Retreat  showed  Greece  how  weak  Persia  really  was, 
and  encouraged  the  expedition  of  Alexander.  In 
Xenophon's  phrase,  they  had  mocked  the  Great  King 
at  his  own  doors. 

17.  From  Trebizond  the  Greeks,  now  reduced  to 
about  8600,  gradually  made  their  way  to  Byzantium 
(Constantinople).  After  two  months'  service  with 
Seuthes,  a  Thracian  prince,  the  remnant  of  6,000 
were  incorporated,  at  Pergamus  in  the  Troad,  with 
the  army  of  the  Lacedaemonian  general  Thimbron, 
who  was  making  war  on  the  Persian  satraps  Tissa- 
phernes  and  Pharnabazus.  Xenophon  then  left  them  in 
March,  399  b.c.  This  was  the  year  in  which  Socrates 
was  put  to  death, — a  crime  by  which  Xenophon,  already 
unfriendly  to  the  Athenian  democracy,  was  further 
embittered  against  Athens.  He  served  in  Asia  under 
his  favourite  hero,  the  Spartan  king  Agesilaus,  and 
fought  under  him  against  the  Athenians  and  Thebans 
at  the  battle  of  Coronea  in  394. 

18.  Then,  if  not  earlier,  he  was  formally  banished 
from  Athens.     The  Spartans  rewarded  him  with  the 


112  GREEK  LITERATURE.  [part  n 

gift  of  an  estate  at  Scillus,  a  village  about  two  miles 
from  Olympia,  in  Elis,  where,  with  his  wife  and  two 
sons,  he  lived  a  happy  country  life  for  about  twenty 
years,  busied  with  writing  and  hunting.  After  the 
great  defeat  of  Sparta  at  the  battle  of  Leuctra  in 
371  B.C.  he  is  said  to  have  been  driven  from  Scillus 
and  to  have  settled  at  Corinth.  We  hear  that  the 
Athenians  revoked  his  sentence  of  banishment,  per- 
haps in  tribute  to  the  bravery  of  his  son  Gryllus,  who 
fell  on  the  Athenian  side  at  Mantinea,  in  362  B.c. 
Xenophon  died  about  354  b.c. 

19.  Besides  the  Anabasis — which  he  did  not  pub- 
lish in  his  own  name,  but  in  that  of  Themistogenes,  a 
Syracusan — his  chief  historical  work  is  the  Hellenica, 
a  history  of  Greece  in  seven  books,  beginning  in  410  B.C., 
soon  after  the  battle  of  Cynossema  in  411,  and  ending 
with  the  battle  of  Mantinea  in  362  b.c  The  first  two 
Books  were  probably  composed  not  later  than  400  b.  c, 
in  continuation  of  the  unfinished  work  of  Thucydides, 
and  differ  much  from  the  last  five  books  both  in  ex- 
pression and  in  tone  of  thought.  It  is  a  dry  history, 
enlivened  occasionally  by  short  speeches  or  conversa- 
tions, but  disfigured  by  the  author's  prejudices  in  favour 
of  Sparta,  and  by  a  jealous  idolatry  of  Agesilaus  which 
makes  him  keep  other  men  in  the  background.  Xeno- 
phon relates  the  first  Theban  invasion  of  the  Pelopon- 
nesus without  telling  us  that  Epameinondas  founded 
Megalopolis  and  restored  Messene ;  and  he  relates  the 
revolution  at  Thebes  without  naming  Pelopidas.  Yet, 
with  all  its  faults,  the  work  is  precious  as  our  chief 
continuous  authority  for  the  history  of  the  Spartan  and 
Theban  supremacies. 

20.  In  the  Recollections  of  Socrates  Xeno- 
phon seeks  to  vindicate  the  teaching  of  his  master  from 
the  vulgar  charges  of  impiety  or  immorality,  and  to 
illustrate  it  by  anecdotes  of  his  life  and  conversation. 
His  Socrates  has  not  the  delicate  irony  of  Plato's 
Socrates,  and  it  may  be  doubted  whether  Xenophon 


chap,  ii.]        EARLY  PROSE.    HISTORY.  113 

always  caught  the  real  drift  of  the  master;  but  the 
book  is  interesting,  not  only  because  it  preserves  many 
genuine  traits  and  sayings,  but  also  as  showing  how 
Socrates  impressed  a  thoroughly  practical,  rather  blunt 
mind.  In  the  Treatise  On  Domestic  Economy  (Oeco- 
fiomiciis),  Socrates  relates  how  a  model  Athenian  hus- 
band had  given  him  his  views  on  the  proper  way  of  edu- 
cating a  young  wife  who,  when  she  married  at  the  age 
of  fifteen,  understood  nothing  but  cookery.  Nothing 
is  said  about  intellectual  training;  but  the  virtues  of  a 
good  wife  and  husband  are  agreeably  drawn.  The 
Banquet — written  probably  before  Plato's  dialogue 
of  the  same  name — is  an  interesting  picture  of  an 
Athenian  supper-party,  enlivened  partly  by  a  profes- 
sional juggler's  troupe,  partly  by  conversation — espe- 
cially by  the  discourse  of  Socrates  on  the  heavenly 
and  the  earthly  Love.  The  Defence  0/  Socrates  on  his 
trial,  which  bears  Xenophon's  name,  is  probably  a 
scholastic  exercise  of  later  date. 

2T.  The  Cyropaedia,  or  'Education  of  Cyrus,' 
is  a  sort  of  historical  romance  in  eight  books,  de- 
scribing how  Cyrus,  the  founder  of  the  Persian  Empire 
(who  died  in  529  B.C.,  and  who  must  not  be  con- 
founded with  the  young  Cyrus  of  the  Anabasis,  killed 
in  401  B.C.),  was  educated,  how  he  distinguished  him- 
self as  statesman,  general  and  king,  and  how,  on  his 
death-bed,  he  gave  counsel  to  his  sons  and  ministers. 
The  work  is  not  historically  accurate,  nor  is  it  a  true 
picture  of  Persian  thought  or  manners,  but  rather  an 
encomium  on  Socratic  principles  and  Spartan  practice, 
in  which  Cyrus  himself — drawn  with  some  touches 
from  the  young  Cyrus  whom  Xenophon  had  known — 
is  half  a  Socrates  and  half  an  Agesilaus.  The  story  of 
the  Assyrian  prince  Abradates,  whose  beautiful  wife 
Panthea  killed  herself  when  he  fell  fighting  for  her 
chivalrous  captor,  Cyrus,  is  the  earliest  prose  love- 
story  in  European  literature.  An  instance  of  the 
Socratic  tone  is  the  story  of  Cyrus  being  chastised  by 


H4  GREEK  LITERATURE.  [part  ii. 

his  tutor  for  confirming  the  act  of  the  big  boy  with 
the  small  coat  who  had  forced  the  little  boy  with  the 
large  coat  to  an  exchange. 

22.  The  Hiero  is  a  dialogue  in  which  Hiero  II., 
tyrant  of  Syracuse,  envies  the  blessedness  of  a  private 
station,  and  the  poet  Simonides  paints  the  possible 
beneficence  of  a  despot.  The  essay  On  the  Lacedae- 
monian Polity  commends  especially  the  hardy  train- 
ing of  Spartan  citizens  by  the  State.  The  essay  On 
the  Athenian  Polity  is  not  by  Xenophon,  but  was 
written,  with  oligarchic  sympathies,  about  420  B.C. 
It  is  thus  the  oldest  extant  specimen  of  literary 
Attic  prose.  The  treatise  On  the  Revenues  of  Athens 
suggests  how  they  may  be  enlarged,  as  by  increasing 
the  number  of  the  tax-paying  resident  aliens,  or  farm- 
ing out  10,000  slaves  to  work  the  silver-mines  at 
Laurium.  It  is  probably  not  by  Xenophon,  but  was* 
written  about  346  b.  c.  in  the  interest  of  the  Athenian 
party  who  held  that  peace  with  Philip  would  ensure 
the  commercial  prosperity  of  the  city. 

23.  The  essay  On  Horsemanship  gives  hints  on  the 
choice  and  the  care  of  horses — especially  as  to  harden- 
ing the  feet  (the  Greeks  did  not  shoe  their  horses 
with  iron) ;  and  on  the  difficult  art  of  mounting  (they 
had  no  stirrups).  The  Hipparchicus ;  or  '  Cavalry  Offi- 
cer's Manual,'  shows  the  petty  scale  and  crude  tactics 
of  warfare.  .  The  essay  On  Hunting  deals  largely  with 
hare-hunting  on  foot :  there  is  a  rather  unsportsman- 
like eagerness  to  kill  by  any  means,  but  also  some 
real  interest  in  the  working  of  the  dogs.  Xenophon 
is  not  a  great  artist,  but  an  excellent  writer  of  varied 
information,  whose  large  knowledge  of  the  world 
usually  saves  his  prejudices  from  overpowering  his 
common  sense.  He  is  the  earliest  essayist;  and 
curious  as  a  partisan  of  Sparta  who  owes  his  distinctive 
merits  to  Athens. 

24.  Ctesias  of  Cnidus,  who  lived  (415 — 398 
B.C.)  as  physician  at  the  court  of  Artaxerxes  Mnemon, 


chap,  in.]  ORATORY.   PHILOSOPHICAL  PROSE.    115 

became  the  Greek  founder  of  oriental  history  by  his 
works,  written  in  Ionic  Greek,  on  Persia  and  India. 
Only  fragments  remain.  The  application  of  lite- 
rary rhetoric  to  history  began  in  the  school  of 
Isocrates,  and  was  best  represented  by  two  of  his 
pupils.  Theopompus  (352  b.  c.)  continued  the  his- 
tory of  Thucydides  to  the  battle  of  Cnidus  (394  B.C.), 
and  in  his  Philippica  made  Philip  of  Macedon  the 
central  figure  in  a  picture  of  Greek  civilisation. 
Ephorus  wrote  a  history  of  Greece  from  the  Return 
of  the  Heracleidae  to  Philip's  siege  of  Perinthus  (340 
B.C.).  Attic  history  and  archaeology  were  treated  in 
special  works  called  Atthides  by  several  writers  from 
Cleidemus  (360  B.C.)  onwards.  The  chief  Atthis  of 
which  fragments  remain  is  that  of  Philochorus,  who 
lived  about  306 — 260  B.C.,  and  carried  his  history 
down  to  262  b.c. 


CHAPTER   III. 

ORATORY.       PHILOSOPHICAL   PROSE. 

Oratory.  Antiphon  b.  480,  d.  411  B.C.  Andocides,  flor. 
415 — 390-  Lysias,  master  of  the  plain  style  of  oratory,  flor. 
403  —381-  Isocrates,  founder  of  literary  rhetorical  prose, 
b.  436.  d.  338-  Isaeus,  the  master  of  forensic  argument, 
flor.  390—353-  Demosthenes,  b.  384,  d.  322-  His  con- 
temporaries :  Aeschines,  Lycurgus,  Hypereides,  Deinarchus, 
Demades. — Decline  of  oratory  begins  with  Demetrius  Pha- 
lereus,  flor.  318  B.C. 

Philosophy.  Plato,  b.  429,  d.  347-  Aristotle,  b.  384,  d.  322- 
Minor  Socratic  schools  : — Megarics,  Cynics,  Cyrenaics. — 
Beginning  of  3rd  century  B.  c.  :  Epicureans  ;  Stoics. 

i.  The  development  of  Attic  prose  is  seen  most 
clearly  in  the  history  of  Attic  oratory.  All  the  Greek 
poetry  and  prose  of  the  earlier  classical  age  was  meant, 
in  some  measure,  to  be  heard  as  well  as  read.  The 
Greek  ear  was  accustomed  to  look  for  musical  rhythm 


Il6  GREEK  LITERATURE.  [part  n. 

and  finished  expression  in  prose  as  well  as  in  verse. 
Public  speaking,  too,  was  cultivated  as  a  fine  art.  It 
was  indispensable  to  a  citizen  who  wished  to  make  his 
mark  in  the  public  Assembly,  or  who  had  to  defend 
himself  before  a  law-court.  Greek  audiences  criticised 
the  style  of  a  speech  'much  as  we  criticise  the  style  of  a 
book.  Hence  oratorical  prose  had  a  direct  and  vital 
bearing  on  Attic  prose  generally. 

2.  Two  chief  influences  combined  to  form  the 
earliest  style  of  Attic  prose,  (i)  One  was  that  of  the 
Sophists,  teachers  who  undertook  to  prepare  young 
men  for  the  career  of  active  citizens  by  training  them  to 
readiness  in  speech  and  argument,  and  who  brought  in 
a  superficial  logic  and  grammar.  The  word  'sophist' 
('  professor  of  learning  or  wisdom ')  was  used  almost  as 
vaguely  as  the  phrase  '  man  of  letters,'  and  could  be 
applied  without  any  bad  sense  to  such  a  man  as  Plato. 
Isocrates  accepted  the  name,  though  he  distinguished 
himself  from  '  sophists  of  the  herd.'  But  the  '  sophists,' 
as  a  class  of  teachers,  got  a  bad  name  partly  from  plain 
men  of  the  old  school  who  feared  their  subtlety, 
partly  from  philosophers  who  despised  their  shallowness. 
Protagoras  and  Prodicus  were  two  of  the  chief 
'sophists.'  (2)  The  other  influence  was  that  of  the 
Sicilian  Rhetoric.  Corax  of  Syracuse  invented  his 
'  Art  of  Words '  (466  b.  c.)  to  help  people  in  pleading 
their  cases  before  law-courts;  it  was  developed  by  his 
disciple  Tisias,  through  whom  it  came  to  Athens. 
The  Sicilians  were  a  lively  people,  in  some  things  like 
the  Athenians  and  in  others  like  the  Irish — fond  of 
discussion,  quick  in  repartee,  and  '  never  so  wretched 
that  they  could  not  make  a  joke.' 

3.  Gorgias  of  Leontini  in  Sicily  was  neither  a 
'sophist'  in  the  proper  sense  nor  a  student  of  rhetoric 
as  an  art,  but  rather  an  independent  cultivator  of 
natural  oratory,  with  a  gift  for  brilliant  expression  of 
a  poetical  and  often  turgid  kind.  When  he  visited 
Athens  in  427  b.c.  his  florid  eloquence  became   the 


chap,  in.]  ORATORY.    PHILOSOPHICAL  PROSE.    117 

rage,  and  was  afterwards  the  first  literary  inspiration 
of  the  orator  Isocrates. 

4.  Antiphon  (born  480  B.C.),  the  first  in  the  list 
of  the  Ten  Attic  Orators  drawn  up  by  later  Greek 
critics,  has  much  in  common  with  the  style  of  Thucy- 
dides,  and,  with  him,  represents  the  early  Attic 
prose.  The  style  is  elaborate ;  it  moves  with  a  grave 
dignity ;  much  weight  of  meaning  is  concentrated  in 
single  words ;  and  pointed  verbal  contrasts  are  fre- 
quent. There  is  a  certain  rugged  grandeur,  a  stern 
pathos,  a  scorn  for  prettiness  or  florid  ornament,  but 
also  a  lack  of  ease,  grace,  and  light  movement.  Anti- 
phon was  the  ablest  debater  and  pleader  of  his  day, 
and  in  his  person  the  new  Rhetoric  first  appears  as  a 
political  power  at  Athens.  He  took  a  chief  part  in 
organising  the  Revolution  of  the  Four  Hundred,  arid 
when  they  fell,  was  put  to  death  by  the  people  (411 
B.C.),  after  defending  himself  in  a  masterpiece  of 
eloquence.  Of  his  15  extant  speeches,  all  relating 
to  trials  for  homicide,  1 2  are  mere  sketches  or  studies, 
forming  three  groups  of  four  each,  in  which  the  case 
for  the  prosecution  is  argued  alternately  with  the  case 
for  the  defence.  The  chief  of  the  three  speeches  in 
real  causes  is  that  On  the  Murder  of  Herodes,  a  de- 
fence of  a  young  Mitylenean  charged  (about  417  B.c.) 
with  the  murder  of  an  Athenian  citizen. 

5.  Andocides,  born  of  a  good  family  about  440 
B.  c,  was  banished  from  Athens  in  415,  on  suspicion 
of  having  been  concerned  in  a  wholesale  sacrilege, 
— the  mutilation,  in  one  night,  of  the  images  of  the 
god  Hermes,  which  stood  before  the  doors  of  houses 
and  public  buildings.  He  made  unsuccessful  applica- 
tion for  a  pardon,  first  in  411  B.C.,  during  the  reign  of 
the  Four  Hundred,  then,  after  their  fall,  in  410, 
when  he  addressed  the  Assembly  in  the  extant  speech 
On  his  Return.  From  410  to  403  he  lived  a  roving 
merchant's  life  in  Sicily,  Italy,  Greece,  Ionia  and 
Cyprus.     In  402  the  general  amnesty  allowed  him  to 

20* 


1 1 8  GREEK  LITER  A  TURE.  [part  II. 

return  to  Athens.  But  in  399  the  old  charges  against 
him  were  revived.  He  defended  himself  in  his  extant 
speech  On  the  Mysteries  (so  called,  because  it  deals 
partly  with  a  charge  that  he  had  violated  the  Mys- 
teries of  Eleusis)  and  was  acquitted.  During  the 
Corinthian  war  he  was  one  of  an  embassy  sent  to 
treat  for  peace  at  Sparta,  and  on  his  return  made  his 
extant  speech  On  the  Peace  with  Lacedaemon  (390  b.c), 
sensibly  advising  Athens  to  accept  the  terms  offered 
by  Sparta.  The  speech  Against  Alcibiades  which  bears 
his  name  is  spurious.  The  chief  interest  of  his  work 
is  historical ;  he  is  not  an  artist  of  style,  but  he  has 
much  natural  force  and  keenness,  and  excels  in  vivid 
description. 

6.  Lysias  did  a  great  work  for  Attic  prose,  and  is, 
in  his  own  style,  one  of  its  most  perfect  writers.  He 
broke  away  from  the  stiff  monotony  of  the  old  school, 
and  dared  to  be  natural  and  simple,  using  the  lan- 
guage of  daily  life,  but  with  perfect  purity  and  grace. 
His  father  was  a  Syracusan,  and  Lysias,  though  born 
at  Athens,  had  not  the  rights  of  a  citizen.  After  pass- 
ing his  youth  and  early  manhood  at  Thurii  in  south 
Italy,  he  settled  at  Athens,  a  wealthy  man,  in  412  b.c. 
In  404  he  fled  from  the  Thirty  Tyrants,  who  had  put 
his  brother  Polemarchus  to  death ;  and,  after  the  re- 
storation of  the  Democracy,  impeached  Eratosthenes, 
one  of  the  Thirty,  in  the  most  splendid  of  his  extant 
speeches  (403  b.  a),  the  only  one  which  we  know  that 
he  himself  spoke  at  Athens.  But  in  388  b.c.  he 
addressed  the  assembled  Greeks  at  Olympia,  in  a  fine 
speech  of  which  we  have  a  fragment,  urging  them  to 
unite  against  the  two  great  foes  of  Greece — Dionysius, 
tyrant  of  Syracuse,  in  the  west,  and  Persia  in  the  east. 
The  speech  Against  Agoratus  (399  b.  c.  ?)  was  written 
for  the  impeachment  of  an  informer  who  had  slandered 
away  the  lives  of  citizens  under  the  Thirty  Tyrants. 
The  great  majority  of  our  34  speeches  were  composed 
by  Lysias  for  his  clients  to  speak  in  public  or  private 


chap,  in.]  ORATORY.    PHILOSOPHICAL  PROSE.    119 

causes.  They  show  the  dramatic  skill  with  which  he 
could  adapt  his  style  to  the  condition  and  character  of 
the  speaker.  The  old  critics  regard  Lysias  as  the  model 
of  the  plain  style  of  oratory,  which  conceals  its  art, 
and  studies  the  language  of  ordinary  life,  as  opposed 
to  the  grand  style  represented  by  Antiphon,  and  the 
middle  style  of  Isocrates. 

7.  Isocrates  differs  from  the  other  Greek  orators 
in  this,  that  his  discourses  were  meant  to  be  read  rather 
than  spoken.  He  represents  the  genius  of  Attic 
Greek  with  less  purity  of  taste  than  Lysias.  But  he 
founded  a  style  of  Greek  literary  prose,  which,  from 
about  350  b.c,  became  the  standard  one  for  general 
use.  Its  chief  characteristics  are  the  avoidance  of 
poetical  language  and  of  declamation,  the  use  of  an 
ample  flowing  period,  and  great  smoothness,  obtained 
chiefly  by  systematic  care  against  allowing  a  word 
ending  with  a  vowel  to  be  followed  by  a  word  which 
begins  with  one.  This  style,  transmitted  through  the 
schools  of  rhetoric,  became  the  basis  of  Cicero's; 
modern  literary  prose  has  been  modelled  largely  on 
the  Roman;  and  thus  the  influence  of  Isocrates  has 
gone  through  all  literature.  He  was  born  in  436  B.C., 
5  years  before  the  Peloponnesian  war  began,  and  died, 
aged  9S,  in  338,  just  after  the  battle  of  Chaeronea. 
Milton  speaks  of  him  as  'the  old  man  eloquent'  whose 
heart  was  broken  by  the  news,  but  the  story  of  his 
suicide  is  doubtful. 

We  have  21  of  his  discourses.  Five  are  for  law- 
suits, and  belong  to  his  earlier  life.  The  rest  are 
either  scholastic — letters,  panegyrics,  show-pieces,  essays 
on  education — ox  political.  There  are  also  nine  letters 
to  friends,  including  Philip  and  Alexander  the  Great. 
The  ruling  idea  of  his  life  was  that  of  a  war  by  the 
united  Greeks  against  Persia.  The  most  brilliant  of 
his  writings — the  Panegyricus  (380  B.c.) — on  which 
he  is  said  to  have  spent  ten  years — is  a  plea  for  such 
a  war,  to  be  led  by  Athens ;  and  in  his  Philippus  he 
11 


120  GREEK  LITERATURE.  [part  ii. 

urges  Philip  to  lead  it.  His  Areopagiticus  (355  b.c.) 
is  a  plea  for  restoring  the  old  moral  censorship  of  the 
Areopagus;  and  his  discourse  (353  B.C.)  On  the  Ex- 
change of  Properties  (so  called  from  the  fiction  of  a 
law-suit  on  which  it  is  based)  is  a  defence  of  his  'phi- 
losophy,' or  political  culture  founded  on  literary  rhetoric. 
The  Encomium  on  Helen  has  much  beauty.  The 
Letter  to  Demonicus  is  full  of  precepts  which  often 
recall  the  Socrates  of  Xenophon. 

8.  Isaeus,born  about  420  b.c,  has  left  11  speeches 
in  will-cases,  ranging  in  date  frorn  about  390  (oration  v.) 
to  353  B.C.  (oration  VII.).  An  Athenian  could  not 
disinherit  his  son,  nor  could  he  separate  his  estate 
from  his  daughter,  though  he  could  choose  the  person 
whom  she  was  to  marry.  If  childless,  he  could  divert 
his  estate  from  the  next  of  kin  by  adopting,  either 
during  his  life  or  by  testament,  an  Athenian  citizen 
as  his  son  and  heir.  The  speeches  of  Isaeus  throw  a 
most  interesting  light  on  the  relations  of  Attic  family 
life.  Their  style  (best  seen  in  the  8th  speech)  marks 
a  stage  in  the  development  of  oratorical  prose,  the 
transition  from  the  'plain'  style  of  Lysias  to  that  full 
technical  mastery  which  reaches  its  summit  in  Demos- 
thenes. Isaeus  is  the  first  great  artist  in  forensic 
controversy. 

9.  Demosthenes,  born  in  384  b.c.  and  left  an 
orphan  in  childhood,  studied  with  Isaeus  before,  in 
363 — 2,  he  prosecuted  Aphobus  and  Onetor,  the  guar- 
dians who  had  wasted  his  property;  and  his  speeches 
against  them  show  that  he  had  caught  the  master's 
secret  of  close,  vigorous  argument.  He  worked  hard  to 
make  himself  a  good  speaker ;  we  are  told  how  he  put 
pebbles  in  his  mouth  and  declaimed  by  the  loud  sea- 
waves  or  while  he  ran  up  hill,  how  he  wrote  out 
Thucydides  eight  times,  how  he  was  laughed  down  by 
the  Assembly  and  comforted  by  an  actor  who  found 
him  moping  about  the  harbour-town.  Not  industry, 
however,  or  genius  alone,  but  a  great  idea  inspiring 


chap,  in.]  ORATORY.    PHILOSOPHICAL  PROSE.    121 

his  whole  life,  lifted  him  to  heights  reached  by  no  other 
orator  of  the  old  world.  Athens,  he  believed,  was  the 
natural  head  of  Greece.  Athens  must  win  the  confidence 
of  all  the  Greeks  in  order  to  guard  Greece  against 
internal  or  external  violence.  But  before  Athens  can 
do  this,  the  public  spirit  of  Athenians  must  be  revived. 

10.  Four  speeches  in  public  prosecutions — 
Against  Androtion  (355),  Leptmes  (354),  Timocrates 
and  Aristocrates  (352) — opened  his  career  with  pro- 
tests against  corrupt  administration  at  home.  Address- 
ing the  Assembly  in  his  speeches  On  the  Navy  Boards 
(354),  For  Megalopolis  (352)  and  For  the  Rhodians  (351), 
he  warns  Athens  that  she  must  organise  her  resources, 
that  she  must  discountenance  the  tyranny  of  Greeks 
over  Greeks,  and  must  everywhere  support  the  cause 
of  Greek  freedom  against  barbarian  despotism.  The 
speech  (neither  finished  nor  spoken)  Against  Meidias 
(349) — who  had  assaulted  Demosthenes  in  public — 
shows  what  bitter  enmity  the  young  reformer  had 
provoked. 

11.  As  Philip  of  Macedon  gradually  stretched  his 
power  along  the  coasts  of  Thrace  and  Thessaly, 
Demosthenes  saw  more  and  more  clearly  that  this 
crafty  king  in  the  North  was  the  great  danger 
which  threatened  the  disunited  Greek  cities.  His  nine 
speeches  against  Philip  form  two  groups.  (1)  The 
First  Philippic  (351  B.C.)  urges  that  a  force  should  be 
sent  to  the  coasts  of  Thrace,  and  that  citizens  should 
serve  in  person.  The  three  orations  for  Olynthus  (349-8) 
plead  the  cause  of  the  great  city,  which,  with  its  con- 
federacy of  32  towns,  Philip  destroyed  in  348.  So  far, 
Philip  had  been  a  foreign  foe.  But  in  346  he  became 
a  Greek  power  by  admission  to  the  Amphictyonic 
Council.  (2)  The  speeches  of  the  second  group — which 
have  to  reckon  with  a  more  definite  Macedonian  party 
within  Greece  itself — are,  the  speech  On  the  Peace '(346), 
The  Second  Philippic  (344),  On  the  Embassy  (343),  On 
the  Chersonese  and  the  Third  Philippic  (341).  Move  by 


122  GREEK  LITERATURE.  [part  h. 

move  the  Macedonian  game  was  explained  by  Demos- 
thenes. At  the  last  moment  he  won  Byzantium  back 
to  the  Athenian  alliance,  and  prevailed  on  Thebes 
to  join  Athens  in  making  a  last,  but  vain,  stand  at 
Chaeronea  (338). 

12.  In  336  b.c.  Ctesiphon  proposed  that  Demos- 
thenes should  receive  a  golden  wreath  of  honour  from 
the  State.  The  orator  Aeschines  raised  legal  objections, 
but  was  defeated  when  the  case  was  tried,  and  left 
Athens.  At  the  trial  (330  B.C.)  Demosthenes  made  a 
splendid  defence  of  his  past  policy  in  the  greatest 
oration  of  the  old  world,  the  speech  On  the  Crown. 
If  the  event  had  been  manifest  to  the  whole  world  before- 
hand, he  said,  not  even  then  ought  Athens  to  have  forsaken 
this  course,  if  Athens  had  any  regard  for  her  glory,  or 
for  her  past,  or  for  the  ages  to  come.     In  322 — when 

the  rising  of  the  Greeks  in  the  Lamian  War,  after 
Alexander's  death,  had  been  crushed — Demosthenes 
took  poison  to  avoid  falling  into  the  hands  of  the 
Macedonians. 

13.  Demosthenes  is  the  greatest  master  of  Greek 
prose.  He  combines  all  the  best  elements  in  earlier 
styles,  and  blends  them  in  new  harmonies.  Some  of 
his  speeches  for  private  law-suits,  written  in 
the  midst  of  his  public  career,  show  how  this  unap- 
proached  artist  of  political  eloquence  could  at  the 
same  time  equal  or  surpass  Lysias  and  Isaeus  in  their 
own  field.  Of  our  32  private  speeches,  only  n  are 
probably  genuine,  viz.  the  four  against  Aphobus  and 
Onetor ;  those  against  Spudias,  Callicles,  Pantaenetus, 
Nausimachus,  Boeotus  (lon  the  Name')  and  Conon; 
with  that  For  Phormio.  Firm  grasp  of  facts,  sparing 
use  of  ornament,  sincerity  and  sustained  intensity,  are 
the  characteristics  which  first  strike  a  modern  reader 
in  the  orations  of  Demosthenes.  We  can  no  longer 
feel  all  the  delicate  touches  of  that  exquisite  skill 
which  made  them,  to  the  ancients,  such  marvellous 
works  of  art,  and  which  led  detractors  to  reproach 


chap,  in.]  ORATORY.   PHILOSOPHICAL  PROSE.    123 

them  with  excess  of  elaboration.  But  we  can  feel,  at 
least,  the  orator's  splendid  mastery  of  every  tone 
which  the  Greek  language  could  yield,  the  intellectual 
greatness  of  the  statesman,  the  moral  greatness  of  the 
patriot  who  warned  his  people  of  the  impending  blow 
and  comforted  them  when  it  had  fallen. 

14.  Aeschines,  born  in  389,  or  five  years  before 
Demosthenes,  was  a  tragic  actor  and  a  clerk  to  the 
Assembly  before  he  came  forward,  about  348,  as  a 
public  speaker.  His  natural  eloquence,  fluent,  vehe- 
ment, and  often  splendid,  was  set  off  by  a  fine 
person  and  voice,  which  the  stage  had  taught  him  to 
make  effective.  In  346  he  was  twice  an  envoy  to 
Philip.  His  speech  Against  Timarchus  (345)  arraigns 
this  man — who  was  about  to  prosecute  him  for  breach 
of  trust  on  the  embassy — as  disqualified  to  speak  in 
the  Assembly  on  account  of  a  vicious  life  :  his  speech 
On  the  Embassy  (343),  in  reply  to  his  former  colleague 
Demosthenes,  gained  him  a  narrow  acquittal.  After 
the  failure  of  his  speech  Against  Ctesiphon  (330) — an 
elaborate  attack  on  the  whole  life  of  Demosthenes — he 
withdrew  to  Rhodes.  The  genius  shown  in  his  elo- 
quence is  marred  by  the  want  of  earnestness  and  moral 
nobleness. 

15.  Lycurgus,  of  a  noble  priestly  family,  steward 
of  the  Treasury  from  338  to  326,  is  represented  only 
by  his  oration  Against  Lcocraies  (332  B.C.),  who  had 
fled  from  Athens  just  after  the  battle  of  Chaeronea, 
and  who  is  here  indicted  for  treason  in  a  speech  full 
of  lofty  indignation,  a  solemn  protest  on  behalf  of 
public  spirit,  in  which  a  strain  of  the  old  style  of  Anti- 
phon  is  blended  with  the  luxuriance  of  Isocrates. 

16.  From  Hypereides  we  have  a  speech,  nearly 
complete,  For  Euxenippus  (about  330  B.C.),  interesting 
as  showing  the  public  belief  in  the  dreams  sent  by  a 
god  to  those  who  slept  in  his  temple ;  fragments  of  a 
Funeral  Oration  on  Leosthenes  and  the  comrades  who 
fell  with  him  in  the  Lamian  war  (322  b.  c.)  ;  of  a  speech 


124  GREEK  LITERATURE.  [part  II. 

spoken  by  Hypereides  Against  Demosthenes  in  324, 
when  the  latter  was  accused  of  having  taken  bribes 
from  Alexander's  treasurer  Harpalus  ;  and  of  a  speech 
For  Lycophron  (earlier  than  349  B.C.),  when  Lycurgus 
was  accuser.  All  these  were  recovered,  between  1847 
and  1856,  from  papyri  found  in  Egypt.  Hypereides 
joined  fire  and  pathos  to  exquisite  wit  and  grace,  and 
was  preferred  by  some  to  Demosthenes  himself. 

1 7.  Deinarchus,  a  Corinthian  by  birth,  the  last 
in  the  canon  of  the  Ten  Attic  Orators,  has  left 
three  speeches,  Against  Demosthenes,  Aristogeiton  and 
Philocles,  written  when  they  were  accused  of  taking 
bribes  from  Harpalus  in  324  B.C.  He  was  mainly  a 
coarse  imitator  of  Demosthenes,  and  far  inferior, 
probably,  to  Demades,  an  orator  on  the  Macedo- 
nian side  at  Athens,  from  whom  there  remain  a  few 
scanty  fragments.  Demetrius  of  Phalerum,  a 
pupil  of  Aristotle,  then  prepared  the  decline  of  Attic 
oratory  in  his  elegantly  luxuriant  style,  '  preferring  his 
own  sweetness  to  the  weight  and  dignity  of  his  pre- 
decessors.' 

18.  While  styles  for  History  and  Oratory  were  thus 
shaped,  Philosophy  also  found  an  Attic  voice.  The 
Dialogues  of  Plato,  apart  from  their  scientific  cha- 
racter, are  masterpieces  of  literary  genius.  Pericles 
died  in  the  autumn  of  429  B.C.;  Plato  was  born  in  the 
summer  of  the  same  year.  The  family  of  his  father 
Ariston  was  noble,  tracing  its  legendary  descent  up  to 
Codrus,  the  last  king  of  Athens.  From  about  the  age 
of  twenty  Plato  was  acquainted  with  Socrates,  and 
he  was  thirty  when  his  master  was  put  to  death  in 
399.  Plato  then  left  Athens  for  a  time,  and,  after 
some  stay  at  Megara  with  Eucleides  (not  the  geometer), 
is  said  to  have  visited  Cyrene  and  Egypt.  The  words 
may  still  be  read  on  the  wall  of  a  temple  by  the  Nile, 
in  which  a  Greek  traveller  of  old  days  has  written  that 
he  came  there  '  many  years  after  the  divine  Plato.' 

In  395  b.  c.  Plato  returned  to  Athens.    Dion,  brother- 


chap,  in.]  ORATORY.    PHILOSOPHICAL  PROSE.    125 

in-law  of  Dionysius  I.  of  Syracuse,  met  Plato  in  Italy 
in  389,  and  persuaded  him  to  visit  the  tyrant's  court. 
Plato,  having  stung  Dionysius  by  his  discourse,  was 
delivered  to  the  Spartan  envoy  Pollis,  who  happened 
to  be  at  Syracuse,  and  was  by  him  sold  as  a  slave  in 
the  market  at  Aegina;  but  was  redeemed  by  a  friend 
and  restored  to  Athens.  After  the  death  of  Dionysius  I., 
Plato  twice  visited  his  son  Dionysius  II.  at  Syracuse  : 
but,  though  he  did  not  again  suffer  personal  wrong,  he 
found  that  he  could  effect  no  good,  and  he  saw  the 
rule  of  a  sensual  despot  as  he  had  pictured  it  in  his 
Republic.  About  386  B.C.  he  had  begun  to  teach  in 
the  Academy — (so  called  from  the  hero  Academus) — a 
gymnasium  with  an  olive-grove  on  the  outskirts  of 
Athens,  near  which  Plato  had  a  house  and  garden. 
He  died  in  347  B.C.,  aged  82. 

19.  The  Greeks  were  the  first  people  who  clearly 
separated  philosophy  from  theology.  The  first  definite 
philosophical  inquiries  in  Greece  began  in  the  6th  cen- 
tury b.c,  about  the  same  time  as  the  rise  of  Buddhism 
in  the  East.  Hitherto  Greeks  had  been  content  to 
personify  natural  agencies.  Now  they  began  to  ask, 
What  are  these  agencies  ?  Cannot  these  agencies  be 
reduced  to  one  or  more  elementary  principles?  As 
one  attempt  after  another  failed,  thinkers  began  to 
ask — '  How  do  we  get  our  knowledge  of  outward 
things  ?  and  how  far  can  we  really  know  anything  at 
all?' 

20.  Then  Socrates  came,  and  saw  that,  to  begin 
with,  we  must  have  a  better  method  of  search.  Let  us 
examine  ourselves  first  of  all,  and  find  out,  if  we  can, 
what  we  really  know  and  what  we  only  seem  to  know. 
For  instance, — What  is  a  statesman  ?  '  A  statesman 
is  a  man  like  Pericles.'  But  if  Pericles  is  tall  and  elo- 
quent, must  all  statesmen  be  so?  Let  us  try  and 
separate  those  qualities  which  belong  to  all  statesmen 
from  those  which  may  be  present  in  one  statesman 
and  absent  from  another.     When  we  have  done  this, 


126  GREEK  LITERATURE.  [part  II. 

we  know  a  statesman  in  his  essence.  We  have  got  a 
conception  of  a  statesman.  And  in  this  search  it  will 
be  good  to  question  other  people,  and  see  if  they 
can  help  us.  But  what  sort  of  subjects  is  it  best 
worth  while  to  investigate  in  this  way  ?  The  nature 
of  the  sun,  moon  and  stars,  the  causes  of  eclipses  and 
earthquakes?  '.No,'  said  Socrates:  'there  is  some- 
thing that  I  want  to  know  first ;  I  want  to  know  how 
I,  as  a  man,  ought  to  live  and  act.'  So  Socrates  made 
philosophy  ethical. 

21.  But,  with  all  our  struggles  to  reach  clear  con- 
ceptions, h6w  can  we  be  sure  that  it  is  even  possible 
for  us  ever  to  get  a  glimpse  of  the  very  truth  ?  Plato 
offered  an  answer.  Everything  that  we  in  this  world 
can  perceive,  Plato  said,  is  a  mere  copy  or  image 
of  a  perfect  original,  which,  exists  in  a  world  above 
us.  For  instance,  when  we  have  formed  our  con- 
ception of  a  statesman,  we  have  not  merely  made 
an  abstract  definition  ;  we  have  got  a  little  nearer — if 
we  have  reasoned  rightly — to  seeing  that  which  really 
exists.  In  a  world  above  this,  there  is  a  perfect  states- 
man, just  as  there  is  a  perfect  tree,  a  perfect  chair, 
perfect  courage.  It  is  this  perfect  archetype  which 
really  exists  ;  the  earthly  copy  only  seems  to  exist. 
This  is  the  Theory  of  Ideas  (from  the  Greek  word 
'  idea,'  '  aspect,'  '  form  '),  that  is,  the  theory  of  perfect 
forms  or  archetypes.  And  everything  that  our  souls 
can  perceive  is  good,  true  or  beautiful,  according  as  it 
resembles  the  supreme  form  or  'idea'  of  all,  the  idea 
of  Good. 

22.  But  as  the  earthly  copies  are  usually  poor, 
faint  copies,  how  can  they  give  the  human  soul  any 
notion  of  their  perfect  originals?  They  could  not, 
Plato  answers,  if  the  soul,  before  coming  into  our 
body,  had  not  had  glimpses  of  those  originals.  The  soul 
has  forgotten  much  of  that  vision.  But  it  has  not  for- 
gotten all.  Even  the  faint  image,  like  a  bad  portrait, 
can  serve  to  remind  the  soul,  if  only  it  strives  to  recol- 


chap,  in.]  ORATOR Y.   PHILOSOPHICAL  PROSE.    127 

lect,  and  does  not  allow  the  base  passions  to  disturb 
it.  This  is  Plato's  doctrine  of  Recollection  (anam- 
nesis). Much  of  the  language  in  Wordsworth's  '  Ode 
on  Intimations  of  Immortality  from  Recollections  of 
Early  Childhood '  might  almost  pass  for  Plato's.  '  Not 
in  entire  forgetfulness '  have  our  souls  come  hither  : — 

Hence  in  a  season  of  calm  weather, 
Though  inland  far  we  be, 
Our  souls  have  sight  of  that  immortal  sea 
Which  brought  us  hither, 

Can  in  a  moment  travel  thither, 
And  see  the  children  sport  upon  the  shore, 
And  hear  the  mighty  waters  rolling  evermore. 

23.  Now  the  human  soul  naturally  loves  the  perfect 
yforms  of  goodness,  truth  and  beauty  when  it  beholds 

them ;  but  this  love  (eros)  may  be  quickened  or  ex- 
tinguished by  education.  Therefore  it  is  important 
that  every  human  being  should  be  so  educated  as  to 
quicken  that  love.  And  therefore,  in  a  perfect  society, 
the  education  of  all  the  citizens  would  be  regulated 
by  those  who  are  themselves  already  in  love  with  the 
perfect  forms  ;  and  everything  that  seems  likely  to 
deaden  that  love  would  be  shut  out  out  at  any  cost. 
Such  a  State  Plato  has  sketched  in  his  Republic, — 
the  literary  original  of  works  so  different  as  St  Augus- 
tine's City  of  God,  Sir  Thomas  More's  Utopia  (i.e. 
No-land),  and  Bacon's  New  Atlantis.  In  his  Laws 
he  traces  many  details  of  an  ideal  code ;  thus  the  city 
is  to  be  just  9  miles  from  the  sea;  the  number  of 
citizens  is  to  be  just  5040 ;  all  traders  are  to  be 
foreigners;  and  no  citizen  under  forty  years  of  age 
is  to  travel. 

24.  We  have  altogether  42  Dialogues  under  Plato's 
name,  of  which  about  25  are  probably  genuine.  Philo- 
sophic dialogue  had  been  written,  before  Plato,  by  the 
Socratic  Alexamenus  of  Teos,  and  probably  by  Zeno 
of  Elea  and  others.     But   Plato  was   the  first  who 


128  GREEK  LITERATURE.  [part  n. 

raised  it  to  an  artistic  form.  The  earliest  dialogues, 
composed  either  before  or  shortly  after  the  death  of 
Socrates  in  399  B.C.,  trace  the  essential  characteristics 
of  Platonic  method,  and  illustrate  the  general  spirit  of 
the  Socratic  teaching  in  contrast  with  the  teaching  of 
the  Sophists.  Plato's  dramatic  power  and  humour  are 
well  shown  in  the  dialogues  of  this  period  which 
introduce  pompous  or  rhetorical  sophists;  such  are 
the  Protagoras  and  the  Euthydemus. 

25.  Soon  after  his  return  to  Athens  in  395  B.  c.  he 
published  the  Gorgias,  which  may  be  regarded  as 
intimating  to  the  Athenian  world  that  he  renounces  a 
political  career.  The  first  sketch  of  the  Republic, 
suggesting  additional  reasons  for  such  a  decision,  may 
have  followed  at  no  long  interval.  In  a  series  of 
dialogues,  beginning  perhaps  with  the  Theaetetus,  and 
including  the  Sophistes,  Politicus,  Parmenides,  he  gra- 
dually worked  out  principles  by  strict  discussion.  The 
Phaedrus,  composed  probably  after  his  first  visit  to 
Sicily  in  389  B.C.,  and  when  he  was  commencing  to 
teach  in  the  Academy,  is  related  to  the  Gorgias  as  a 
mature  and  amended  re-statement,  with  developments, 
of  the  views  there  traced  in  outline.  Later  dialogues, 
such  as  the  Symposium,  Phaedo,  Philebus,  and  the 
Republic  in  its  final  form  as  we  have  it,  show  the 
influence  of  the  school  of  Pythagoras,  which  applied . 
a  doctrine  of  mystic  numbers  to  the  theory  of  real 
existence,  and  with  which  Plato  became  conversant 
during  his  travels,  especially  in  Southern  Italy. 

26.  Several  dialogues  of  the  earlier  time  raise 
questions  to  which  they  give  no  formal  answers ;  they 
merely  hint  the  direction  in  which  an  answer  is  to  be 
sought.  Such  are  sometimes  called  dialogues  of  search. 
Thus  the  Lysis  asks,  'What  is  Friendship?'  the 
Charmides,  •  What  is  Temperance  ?'  the  Laches,  *  What 
is  Courage?'  the  Theaetetus,  'What  is  Knowledge?' 
On  the  other  hand,  some  of  the  latest  dialogues  are 
didactic,    helping  to  build  up  a   definite  doctrine, — 


chap,  in.]  ORATORY.   PHILOSOPHICAL  PROSE.    129 

political,  as  the  Republic  and  Laws,   or  cosmical,  as 
the  Timacus  and  Critias. 

27.  Plato's  style  is  on  the  borderland  between 
poetry  and  prose ;  it  has  exquisite  conversational  ease 
and  grace ;  it  has  also  bursts  of  soaring  eloquence, 
when  we  seem  to  be  listening  to  the  words  of  one  who 
is  actually  looking  on  some  glorious  vision.  Some 
of  the  finest  passages  occur  in  the  stories  or  myths 
which  occasionally  serve  to  relieve  or  vary  the  dia- 
logue ;  such  as  the  chariot  of  the  soul,  in  the  Phae- 
drus ;  the  world  above  our  own,  and  the  judgment  of 
the  dead  (Gorgias  and  Phaedd) ;  the  man  Er's  visit  to 
the  place  of  departed  souls  (Republic) ;  the  creation 
of  man  (Timaeus);  the  Island  of  Atlantis  [Critias). 

28.  No  heathen  taught  a  purer  conception  of  God 
than  Plato  did:  in  his  ideal  State  he  would  have  no 
legends  told  save  such  as  declare  that  God  is  good,  and 
the  author  of  good  only :  the  choruses  of  children, 
youths  and  men  shall  sing  to  the  young  and  tender 
souls  of  children  that  the  life  which  the  gods  deem 
the  happiest  is  the  holiest :  and  the  perfection  of  man's 
nature,  Plato  held,  is  to  bring  himself  as  far  as  he  can 
into  harmony  with  God.  Philo,  an  Alexandrian  Jew 
(20  a.d.),  first  blended  Plato's  doctrines  with  Judaism; 
and  out  of  this  grew  in  the  3rd  century  a.d.  the 
mystical  school  of  Neoplatonism,  teaching  that  the 
soul  must  be  purged  from  the  taint  of  the  senses  till  it 
can  hold  direct  communion,  through  the  Ideas,  with 
God,  from  whom  they  emanate. 

29.  Aristotle,  son  of  the  physician  Nicomachus, 
was  born  in  384  B.C.  at  Stageira,  on  the  gulf  of 
Strymon  near  Mount  Athos  in  Thrace.  His  family 
belonged  to  a  clan  tracing  descent  from  the  mythical 
physician  Asclepius  (Aesculapius).  In  Asclepiad  fami- 
lies, we  are  told,  the  boys  were  regularly  taught  dis- 
section. Aristotle's  interest  in  physical  science  might 
thus  have  been  roused  in  boyhood ;  but  passages  in 
his  writings  have  been  thought  to  indicate  that  he  was 


13°  GREEK  LITERATURE.  [part  n. 

at  least   no   practised   dissector.     His   life  falls  into 
three  chapters. 

(i)  In  367  B.C.,  his  father  being  dead,  he  was  sent 
to  Athens  by  his  guardian,  Proxenus  of  Atarneus,  and 
became  one  of  Plato's  most  distinguished  pupils, — 
'  the  mind,'  as  Plato  said,  of  the  school.  Plato  died 
in  347,  and  was  succeeded  at  the  head  of  the 
Academy  by  his  nephew  Speusippus.  (2)  Aristotle, 
aged  37,  then  went  to  Atarneus  in  Mysia,  of  which 
his  former  fellow-student  Hermeias  was  now  ruler. 
Hermeias  fell  a  victim  to  Persian  treachery  in  344. 
Aristotle  then  passed  two  years  at  Mitylene.  In  342 
he  was  invited  by  Philip  of  Macedon  to  be  tutor  to 
Alexander,  then  a  boy  of  fourteen.  In  336  Philip 
died ;  Alexander  became  king ;  and  Aristotle  settled 
at  Athens.  (3)  At  Athens,,  about  334  b.  c,  he  began 
composing  that  series  of  great  works  which  he  carried 
on,  without  a  break,  to  his  death  in  322  :  teaching 
also  in  the  Lyceum,  an  enclosure  with  temple  and 
grounds  sacred  to  the  Lycean  Apollo.  From  its 
covered  ivalks  (peripatoi),  his  school  were  called  the 
Peripatetics. 

Alexander  died  in  323.  Athenian  jealousies  against 
Aristotle  now  broke  out.  He  was  accused  of  'im- 
piety ' ;  but  withdrew,  before  trial,  to  Chalcis  in 
Euboea.  There  he  died,  rather  suddenly,  in  322  B.C., 
aged  sixty-two  ;  thus  closing  his  life,  as  he  had  begun 
it,  in  the  same  year  with  Demosthenes.  We  are  told 
by  writers  who  were  not  inclined  to  be  complimen- 
tary that  Aristotle  had  small  eyes,  thin  legs,  and  a 
lisp,  that  he  was  attentive  to  his  dress,  and  that  his 
table  was  luxurious  :  from  which  it  may  be  inferred 
that  he  did  not  give  any  very  strong  hold  to  slander. 

30.  The  fate  of  Aristotle's  writings  is  the  subject 
of  a  story  which,  though  not  unquestioned,  has  good 
authority.  He  left  his  manuscripts  to  his  pupil  Theo- 
phrastus.  Theophrastus  died  in  287,  and  left  them  to 
Neleus.    Neleus  took  them  to  Scepsis  in  the  Troad, 


chap,  in.]  ORATORY.   PHILOSOPHICAL  PROSE.     131 

where  they  were  hidden  in  a  vault,  to  save  them  from 
being  seized  for  the  Library  at  Pergamus.  About  100 
A.  D.,  they  were  sold  by  the  family  to  Apellicon,  a  rich 
Athenian  with  a  taste  for  book-collecting.  In  86  b.  c. 
Sulla  took  Athens ;  Apellicon's  library  went  to  Rome  ; 
there  Tyrannion,  Cicero's  learned  Greek  friend,  got 
leave  to  arrange  it ;  and  ultimately  an  edition  of 
Aristotle's  manuscripts  was  brought  out  at  Rome  by 
Androntcus  of  Rhodes.  Now,  about  220  B.C. — that 
is,  while  the  papers  were  still  in  their  vault — a  cata- 
logue of  Aristotle's  writings  was  made  at  Alexandria, 
enumerating  some  146  works,  not  one  of  which  we 
know  except  from  small  fragments.  What  can  these 
have  been?  It  seems  likely  that  they  were  in  large 
part  Aristotle's  lost  Dialogues,  written  in  his  earlier 
days  in  imitation  of  Plato,  and  praised  by  Cicero 
for  their  '  golden  flow,'  whereas  the  style  of  the  extant 
writings  is  dry  and  bald ; — partly  papers  by  his  pupils, 
or  mere  forgeries;  altogether  a  collection  of  small 
worth.  If  this  is  true,  nothing  but  a  chain  of  lucky 
chances  saved  Aristotle's  great  works,  which,  for  hun- 
dreds of  years,  gave  a  strong  bent  to  the  mind  of 
Europe,  and  which  have  had  a  more  direct  part  in 
shaping  modern  thought  than  any  writings  of  the  old 
world. 

31.  Aristotle  took  almost  all  human  knowledge,  as 
it  then  was,  and  mapped  it  out  into  several  provinces 
or  sciences,  seeking  to  show  what  principles 
were  peculiar  to  each  science,  and  what 
questions  each  had  to  answer.  Aristotle's  whole 
work,  from  beginning  to  end,  was  one  continuous  work, 
of  which  each  part  led  on  to  the  next,  and  which 
made,  in  his  view,  one  organic  whole. 

32.  He  began  with  the  method  of  knowledge, 
and  composed  the  treatises  on  the  science  of  reasoning 
which  together  form  his  Organon,  that  is  '  Instru- 
ment,' of  reasoning ;  treating,  in  connection  with  this, 
the  art  of  Rhetoric,  that  is  the  art  of  discovering,  in 

12 


132  GREEK  LITERATURE.  [part  ii. 

any  given  case,  the  available  means  of  persuasion. 
Aristotle  was  the  first  to  treat  Rhetoric  on  a  scientific 
system  as  the  popular  branch  of  Dialectic.  In 
another  treatise  he  carried  the  analysis  of  Poetry,  con- 
sidered as  an  imitative  art,  through  the  Epic  and 
Tragic  branches.  Then  he  turned  to  the  practi- 
cal sciences  of  Ethics  and  Politics.  Next — having 
dealt  with  that  which  most  immediately  concerns  man 
as  a  moral  agent — he  went  on  to  the  physical 
sciences;  and  when  he  died,  he  seems  to  have  been 
at  work  on  what  we  call  Metaphysics,  and  what  he 
sometimes  called  the  First  Philosophy,  which 
seeks  to  explore  the  origin  and  nature  of  existence 
and  of  knowledge  itself. 

33.  Aristotle's  greatest  achievement  was  to  found 
Logic,  the  science  of  reasoning.  Socrates  and  Plato 
had  founded  Dialectic,  the  art  of  discussion.  Aris- 
totle began  by  trying  to  find  out  some  general  rules 
which  might  be  useful  in  this  art  of  discussion.  And, 
as  he  went  on,  he  perceived  that  reasoning  might, 
in  itself,  be  a  science.  He  discovered  the  syllo- 
gism. He  only  twice  refers  to  himself, — once 
in  apologising  for  differing  from  Plato  about  the 
1  Ideas,'  and  once  in  saying  that  he  had  made  out  for 
himself  the  process  of  syllogising.  He  does  not  use 
the  word  '  Logic,'  which  the  Stoics  seem  to  have  adopt- 
ed afterwards.  He  calls  it  'Analytic,'  that  is,  the  art  of 
analysing  and  dissecting  the  forms  in  which  we  reason. 
Deductive  reasoning  leads  us  down  from  a  general  to 
a  particular  statement:  e.g.  all  men  are  mortal;  A 
is  a  man ;  therefore  he  is  mortal  (deductive  syllogism). 
Inductive  reasoning  leads  us  on  from  a  particular  to 
a  general  statement :  e.g.  A,  B,  C,  D  are  swans  ;  they 
are  white;  therefore  all  swans  are  white  (inductive 
syllogism).  But  this  conclusion  will  not  be  true  un- 
less A,  B,  C,  D  are  a  complete  catalogue  of  swans. 
Aristotle  completed  the  correct  analysis  of  the 
deductive  process.     But  he  did  not  work  out  the 


CHAP,  ill.]  ORATORY.    PHILOSOPHICAL  PROSE.    133 

analysis  of  the  inductive  process  with  the  same  com- 
pleteness. And  the  reason  why  he  did  not  was  that, 
to  the  end,  he  was  a  dialectician  rather  than  a  man 
of  science. 

34.  Aristotle's  Ethics  bear  the  epithet '  Nicoma- 
chean,'  probably  because  his  son  Nicomachus  had 
something  to  do  with  editing  them.  The  Eudetnian 
Ethics  are  not  by  Aristotle,  but  are  a  paraphrase  of 
his  views  by  his  disciple  Eudemus.  From  this  work 
Books  v,  vi,  vii  of  the  '  Nicomachean '  Ethics  were 
probably  borrowed  by  their  editor,  to  fill  up  a  gap  left 
by  Aristotle,  who,  after  writing  Books  1. — iv.,  wrote 
viii. — x.  The  Magna  Moralia,  or  'Great  Ethics,' 
which  go  over  the  same  ground,  are  by  some  later 
member  of  the  school.  The  end  of  all  action,  Aris- 
totle says,  is  happiness.  Man's  happiness  consists  in  the 
harmonious  exercise  of  his  best  powers  according  to 
their  own  law  of  excellence  or  virtue.  Every  particular 
virtue  is  a  mean  between  two  extremes.  The  Greeks 
tended  to  look  at  '  right '  and  '  wrong '  as  the  morally 
beautiful  and  the  morally  ugly;  so  that  virtue  be- 
comes a  sublime  form  of  good  taste.  The  chief 
thing  that  Aristotle's  Ethics  did  was  to  show  that 
virtue  is  a  state  of  the  will,  and  not,  as  previous 
thinkers  had  said,  a  state  of  the  reason;  and  that 
habits  or  states  of  the  will  are  formed  by  often 
doing  the  same  kind  of  action.  '  Man,'  Aristotle  said, 
1  is  a  social  creature ' ;  man,  apart  from  society,  would 
be  either  a  god  or  a  brute.  Hence  the  science  of 
what  man  ought  to  do  (Ethics)  is  only  a  branch  of  the 
science  of  organised  society  (Politics) ;  and  Aristotle 
was  the  first  who  treated  Ethics  separately  from 
Politics. 

35.  In  the  Politics  he  sketches  his  Ideal  State, 
with  a  population  of  citizens  perhaps  20,000  in  num- 
ber, of  whom  each  is  to  be  educated  by  the  State, — to 
be  a  landowner  of  moderate  wealth, — to  be  personally 
known  to  the  rulers, — to  have,  in  turn,  a  share  in 

2i* 


134  GREEK  LITERATURE.  [part  ii. 

ruling, — and  to  be  free  from  all  but  political  and  mili- 
tary tasks.  Slavery,  he  holds,  is  essential,  in  order  that 
citizens  may  have  leisure.  No  citizen  is  to  be  a 
tradesman  or  a  mechanic :  and  no  interest  is  to  be 
taken  on  money.  Monarchy,  Aristocracy,  and  a  mixed 
Constitutional  Government  (Politeia)  are  described, 
with  the  three  forms  into  which  they  respectively  de- 
generate,— Tyranny,  Oligarchy  and  Democracy.  Aris- 
totle's remarks  on  these,  and  on  revolutions,  are  often 
curiously  illustrated  by  the  history  of  the  Italian  Re- 
publics. He  has  no  idea  of  Representative  Govern- 
ment. 

36.  In  his  contributions  to  the  science  of  life,  or 
what  is  now  called  'biology,'  Aristotle  defines  soul,  or 
the  vital  principle,  as  the  essential  actuality  of  an  organ- 
ised body, — a  marked  advance  on  the  popular  view  of 
life  as  something  that  could  detach  itself  from  the  body. 
In  his  Researches  about  Animals  we  have  the  earliest 
book  on  Natural  History.  It  has  been  shown 
that  he  notices,  or  indicates,  about  500  species,  in- 
cluding about  350  vertebrates.  One  of  his  contribu- 
tions to  mental  science  was  to  bring  out  clearly 
some  of  the  laws  of  association  of  ideas,  which  distin- 
guishes the  human  power  of  recollection  from  the  mere 
memory  of  other  animals. 

37.  During  the  first  four  centuries  of  the  Christian 
era  Aristotle  busied  a  long  series  of  Greek  commen- 
tators. Then  came  centuries  during  which  he  was 
known  to  Western  Europe  only  through  Latin  versions 
of  some  of  his  minor  logical  works.  And  then,  at  the 
end  of  the  12th  century,  the  Arabian  scholar  Averroes 
(Ibn  Raschid)  made  the  great  works  of  Aristotle  known 
by  commentaries  which  were  translated  into  Latin. 
Thomas  Aquinas  caused  a  new  translation  of  Aristotle 
to  be  made  (1260 — 1270  a. d.)  from  the  Greek;  Dante 
(1300)  hails  Aristotle  as  'the  master  of  those  who 
know;'  Chaucer  describes  the  Oxford  student  of  the 
14th  century  who  has  'twenty  bookes  clothed  in  blake 


chap,  in.]  ORATORY.   PHILOSOPHICAL  PROSE.    135 

or  red'  of  Aristotle  'at  his  beddes  hed;'  and  till  the 
second  half  of  the  16th  century  his  authority  was 
almost  supreme.  His  physical  theory  of  the  universe, 
which  was  the  basis  of  the  Ptolemaic,  was  not  finally 
displaced  by  the  Copernican  before  the  end  of  the 
17th  century.  To  this  day,  when  men  talk  of  'mind 
and  matter,'  '  final  cause/  '  motive,'  '  the  end  of  our 
aims,'  '  faculty,'  '  habit,'  '  actually,'  they  are  talking  the 
Latinised  language  of  Aristotle. 

38.  Theophrastus  of  Eresus  in  Lesbos  (374 — 287 
B.C.)  succeeded  Aristotle  at  the  head  of  the  Lyceum, 
and  followed  his  master  in  handling  physical  as  well 
as  moral  science.  We  have  from  him  two  botanical 
works,  Researches  about  Plants  in  nine  books,  and  Prin- 
ciples of  Vegetable  Life  in  six  books,  which  show  him 
to  have  been  a  thorough  and  acute  inquirer ;  also  30 
short,  lively  sketches  of  character — such  as  '  The  Flat- 
terer,' 'The  Grumbler,'  'The  Boastful  Man,'  'The 
Man  of  Petty  Ambition.'  These  Characters  were 
the  original  models  of  those  sketches  which  English 
literature  produced  in  the  17  th  century,  such  as  Hall's 
Characteristnes  of  Verities  and  Vices,  Overbury's  Cha- 
racters or  Witty  Descriptions  of  the  Properties  of  Sundry 
Persons,  and  Earle's  Microcosmographie. 

39.  The  minor  Socratic  schools,  as  they  are 
sometimes  called,  were  the  Megaric,  founded  by 
Eucleides  of  Megara,  distinguished  for  criticism  of 
reasoning  processes,  especially  for  the  invention  of 
logical  fallacies  or  puzzles ;  the  Cynic,  founded  by 
Antisthenes,  placing  virtue  in  renunciation  of  the 
natural  pleasures,  and  contempt  for  the  natural  decen- 
cies, of  life;  the  Cyrenaic,  founded  by  Aristippus  of 
Cyrene,  who  pursued  equable  pleasure  through  versa- 
tile self-discipline.  But  the  school  of  the  Academy 
founded  by  Plato,  and  the  Peripatetic  school 
founded  by  Aristotle,  held  the  foremost  place  till  the 
earlier  part  of  the  3rd  century  b.  c.  Two  new  schools 
then  began  to  gain  ground. 


136  GREEK  LITERATURE.  [part  11. 

40.  Epicurus  (342 — 270  b.c.)  taught  the  dis- 
ciples gathered  round  him  at  his  house  near  Athens, — 
in  those  pleasure-grounds  from  which  Epicureans  are 
called  'the  Philosophers  of  the  Garden' — that  man 
should  seek  the  enjoyment  of  the  hour,  undisturbed  by 
fear  of  gods  who  regard  him  not,  or  of  that  '  death ' 
which  is  merely  the  resolution  of  the  body  into  such 
atoms  as  compose  the  universe.  The  school  called 
Stoic,  from  the  '  Painted  Stoa'  or  Porch  at  Athens 
frequented  by  its  masters,  was  founded  by  Zeno  (344 
— 260  B.C.)  and  developed  by  his  followers  Cleanthes 
and  Chrysippus.  Virtue,  they  held,  is  the  only  good. 
Nothing  is  evil  except  in  so  far  as  it  is  contrary  to 
virtue.  And  virtue  consists  in  living  according  to 
Nature,  that  is,  according  to  the  divine  reason  in  which 
we  participate.  Stoicism  first  showed  its  full  power 
when  it  took  hold  on  the  congenial  Roman  mind. 
But,  in  its  best  Roman  representatives,  it  never  wholly 
lost  the  gentleness  of  its  earlier  Greek  home ;  and, 
under  the  early  or  the  declining  Empire,  it  became 
the  dominant  influence  in  some  of  the  noblest  charac- 
ters that  the  heathen  world  had  known. 


chap.  I.]    FROM  ALEXANDER   TO  AUGUSTUS.    137 


PART  III.    THE  LITERATURE  OF  THE 
DECADENCE. 

CHAPTER  I. 

from  alexander  to  augustus. 

300—30  b.c. 

I.  The  Alexandrian  Period :  300 — 146  B.C.  Poetry:  Callima- 
chus,  Lycophron,  260  B.  C.  Apollonius  Rhodius,  194.  Aratus, 
270.  Nicander,  150.  Theocritus,  Bion,  270;  Moschus 
their  younger  contemporary. — Learning  and  Science:  Zeno- 
dotus,  280.  Aristophanes.  209.  Aristarchus,  156.  Apol- 
lodorus,  140.  Euclid,  300.  Eratosthenes,  Archimedes, 
210.— History:  Manetho,  Berosus,  270. 

II.  The  Graeco-Roman  Period:  146  B.C.— 529  A.  v.  First 
part: — From  the  Roman  Conquest  of  Greece  to  the  end  of  the 
Roman  Republic,  146—30  B.  c. .  History :  Polybius,  145  B.  C ; 
Diodorus  Siculus,  40  B.C. 

i.  Hellenism.  When  Philip  of  Macedon  defeated 
the  Greeks  at  Chaeronea,  the  Greek  cities  became 
really  dependent  on  Macedon.  They  kept  their  sepa- 
rate laws,  but  they  had  no  longer  any  real  power  of 
acting  in  great  matters  as  they  chose.  Their  free 
political  life  was  gone.  Then  came  Alexander's  con- 
quests in  the  East,  and  the  sudden  break-up  of  his 
empire  at  his  death  into  three  chief  kingdoms,  Mace- 
donia, Asia,  Egypt.  One  great  result  of  his  conquests 
had  been  the  spreading  abroad  of  Greek  civilisation. 
Many  cities,  such  as  Antioch  and  Seleucia,  were 
founded  in  Western  Asia,  inhabited  partly  by  Asiatics 
and  partly  by  Greeks  from  various  parts.  Under  the 
rule  of  Alexander's  Successors  these  new  cities  in 
Asia  could  not  have  the  true  life  of  the  old  Greek 
cities,  of  which  the  soul  was  political  independence. 


138  GREEK  LITERATURE.  [part  in. 

But  in  outward  things  they  were  Greek.  Greek  was 
the  language  generally  spoken.  Greek  books  were 
read  and  written.  There  were  Greek  temples,  statues, 
baths,  porticoes,  theatres.  This  civilisation, 
Greek  in  its  general  character,  but  pervading 
people  not  exclusively  Greek  by  race,  is  pro- 
perly called  Hellenism,  which  means, — not  ' being 
Hellenes '  or  Greeks,  but — '  doing  like  Hellenes ;'  and 
as  the  adjective  answering  to  Hellas  is  Hellenic,  so  the 
adjective  answering  to  Hellenism  is  Hellenistic. 

2.  All  the  great  Hellenic  poetry  and  prose  had 
its  spring  in  a  spontaneous  impulse  of  the  author,  who 
wished  to  say  to  his  fellow-citizens  that  which  he  felt 
was  good  and  worthy  to  be  heard.  And  the  people 
tried  his  work,  not  by  the  arbitrary  rules  of  a  school  or 
a  clique,  but  by  the  standard  of  real  experiences,  and 
by  a  feeling  for  beauty  which  had  become  instinctive 
through  the  graciousness  of  their  daily  surroundings. 
The  poet  of  the  Iliad  sang  of  legends  which  were  a 
living  joy  to  all  who  heard  them,  even  as  to  himself. 
Simonides  and  Pindar, — Aeschylus,  Sophocles  and 
Euripides, — Herodotus,  Thucydides, — all  these  were 
creative  artists,  whose  efforts  were  quickened  by  the 
healthy  inspiration  of  a  natural  life  and  controlled  by 
that  genuine  criticism  which  came  to  them  in  the 
voice  of  the  city. 

3.  But  as  the  vigour  of  the  Greek  cities  decayed, 
the  citizen  began  to  care  less  for  the  city  and  more 
for  his  private  pursuits.  Social  life  became  more 
and  more  separate  from  public  life,  with  which 
it  had  before  been  one.  Among  thoughtful  men  who 
did  not  engage  in  politics  the  old  exclusiveness  of 
Hellenic  sentiment  began  to  be  modified.  Such  men 
began  to  ask  not,  Is  he  a  Greek  citizen  1 — but,  Has  he 
a  Greek  mind?  This  enlargement  of  intellectual 
sympathy — at  the  same  time  a  sign  of  political  decay 
— had  first  begun  to  show  itself  in  the  age  of  Epamei- 
nondas,   and,   by  its   progress  among  the  few,  had 


chap.  I.]    FROM  ALEXANDER    TO  AUGUSTUS.     139 

helped  to  prepare  the  dissolution  of  Hellenic  unity. 
It  finds  its  clear  and  memorable  expression  in  the 
words  of  Isocrates  :  'Athens  has  brought  it  to  pass 
that  the  name  of  Greek  should  be  thought  no  longer 
a  matter  of  race,  but  a  matter  of  intelligence  ; 
and  should  be  given  to  the  participators  in  our  culture 
rather  than  to  the  sharers  of  our  common  origin.' 

4.  The  literature  of  Hellenism  is  no  longer  spon- 
taneous or  creative.  It  does  not  take  its  inspiration 
directly  from  life,  but  from  books  already  existing. 
The  Hellenic  literature  was  original :  the 
Hellenistic  literature  is  derivative.  Writers 
now  appeal — not  to  the  whole  body  of  their  fellow- 
citizens,  as  in  the  free  Greek  cities — but  to  the  noble 
or  learned  few  who,  amid  mongrel  populations  speak- 
ing mixed  jargons,  are  the  judges  of  Greek  style. 
Literature  becomes  a  polite  industry,  in  which  success 
is  to  be  achieved  by  obeying  or  inventing  critical 
canons.    Mannerism  and  affectation  begin  to  invade  it. 

5.  Alexandria,  the  new  capital  of  the  Ptolemies, 
was  the  first  great  seat  of  literary  Hellenism.  Com- 
merce quickly  made  its  home  at  this  natural  centre  of 
the  traffic  between  East  and  West ;  and  material  wealth, 
in  migrating  from  Greece  to  Egypt,  drew  the  arts  and 
sciences  in  its  train.  King  Ptolemy  I.,  surnamed  Soter, 
'  the  Preserver'  (306 — 285  B.C.),  founded  the  Museum, 
or  Temple  of  the  Muses,  which  was  somewhat  like  a 
modern  university.  The  buildings  included  galleries 
of  art,  lecture-rooms  and  dining-halls.  Distinguished 
men  of  learning  were  maintained  at  the  Museum  ;  and 
the  beautiful  gardens,  with  their  shady  walks,  their 
statues  and  fountains,  became  famous  as  the  haunt  of 
Alexandrian  poets  and  scholars.  'School  after  school, 
they  had  all  walked  and  taught  and  sung  there,  beneath 
the  spreading  planes  and  chestnuts,  figs  and  palm- 
trees.  The  place  seemed  fragrant  with  all  the  riches 
of  Greek   thought    and   song."     The   Library  had 

1  Kingsley's  Hypatia. 


14°  GREEK  LITERATURE.  [part  in. 

once  contained,  in  about  700,000  manuscripts,  almost 
all  that  had  been  written  in  Greek ;  and  even  after  the 
siege  by  Caesar,  when  part  was  burned,  contained 
400,000.  'There  it  towered  up,  the  wonder  of  the 
world,  its  white  roof  bright  against  the  rainless  blue ; 
and  beyond  it,  among  the  ridges  and  pediments  of 
noble  buildings,  a  broad  glimpse  of  the  bright  sea.' 

6.  In  the  Alexandrian  literature,  Prose  holds  the 
foremost  place,  and  is  especially  employed  in  the 
labours  of  science  and  erudition.  The  ideal  forms 
of  the  earlier  Hellenic  art  can  no  longer  be  repro- 
duced with  freshness  or  success.  Poetry  either 
imitates  these  forms  in  a  learned  and  scientific  spirit, 
or  seeks  novelty  in  the  by-paths  of  some  lighter  strain. 

7.  Learned  poetry. — Callimachus  (260  b.c.) 
has  left  six  Hymns  to  the  Gods,  and  a  collection 
of  epigrams ;  but  his  once  famous  elegies  are  repre- 
sented only  by  fragments,  and  by  the  Latin  translation 
of  Catullus  from  his  •  Lock  of  Berenice.'  Berenice, 
the  queen  of  Ptolemy  Euergetes,  had  dedicated  some 
tresses  of  her  hair  in  a  temple  ;  they  had  been  stolen ; 
and  the  court-poet  makes  them  relate  how  the  gods 
had  placed  them  among  the  stars.  Ovid  imitated  his 
Ibis,  a  poetical  invective  against  his  pupil  the  poet 
Apollonius ;  and  took  the  idea  of  the  Fasti  partly 
from  his  Aitia  or  '  Origins'  of  sacred  tradition  and 
usage.  Apollonius  Rhodius  (194  b.c.)  wrote  the 
Argonautica,  an  epic  in  four  books  on  Jason's  '  Voyage 
in  the  Argo'  to  win  the  golden  fleece.  It  is  the  work 
of  a  learned  Homeric  scholar  who  has  not  the  Ho- 
meric feeling  for  the  heroic  age  ;  it  is  artificial,  and 
somewhat  cold ;  but  there  is  some  fine  dramatic  paint- 
ing; the  poem  is  full  of  literary  interest,  and  is  the 
best  of  its  class  that  the  Alexandrian  age  has  left. 
From  Lycophron  (260  b.c),  the  most  celebrated 
tragic  poet  of  Alexandria,  we  have  a  poem  called 
Alexandra  in  about  1400  iambic  verses,  in  which  Cas- 
sandra predicts  how  the  voyage  of  Paris  to  Sparta  will 


chap.  I.]  FROM  ALEXANDER    TO   AUGUSTUS.     141 

affect  the  fortunes  of  Asia  and  Greece.  The  mytho- 
logy is  obscured  by  far-fetched  metaphor,  and  curiously 
illustrates  the  taste '  of  the  time  for  learned  riddles  in 
verse. 

8.  Didactic  poetry. — Aratus  (270  b.  c.)  was 
the  author  of  an  astronomical  epic  which  Cicero  trans- 
lated, entitled  Prognostics  of  the  Weather  (Diosemeia). 
It  is  from  Aratus  that  St  Paul,  addressing  the  Athenians, 
quotes  the  words  '  For  we  are  also  his  offspring '  (Acts 
xvii.  28).  Nicander  (150  b.c.)  versified  medical  lore 
in  two  epics  still  extant, — one,  called  Theriaca,  on 
venomous  bites,  the  other,  called  Alexipharmaca,  on 
antidotes  to  poison.  His  lost  Georgics  were  consulted 
by  Virgil ;  and  Ovid  used  his  Transformations  {Heier- 
oioumena)  as  well  as  the  Metamorphoses  of  the  later 
poet  Parthenius. 

9.  Pastoral  poetry. — Theocritus,  a  Syracusan, 
flourished  about  270  B.C.,  under  Ptolemy  II.  (Phila- 
delphus),  and  is  the  Greek  representative  of  pastoral 
or  bucolic  poetry.  Shepherds  contending  for  a  prize 
in  alternate  or  amoebaeic  strains  gave  rise  to  this  rustic 
poetry,  which  was  distinctively  Dorian  and  espe- 
cially Sicilian  :  hence  Milton  calls  his  Lycidas,  in  which 
one  shepherd  is  supposed  to  be  mourning  for  another, 
a  Doric  lay,  and  invokes  the  Sicilian  muse.  Besides 
some  epigrams  and  fragments,  we  have  3 1  short  poems 
under  the  name  of  Theocritus, — though  the  genuine- 
ness of  some  is  doubtful, — mainly  in  the  Doric  dialect. 
Scarcely  one  half  of  these  are  properly  pastoral  in 
subject ;  but  most  of  them  may  properly  be  called 
idyls,  i.  e.  little  pictures  of  life1.  Here  we  see  the 
dramatic  influence  of  the  Dorian  farces  or  mimes, 
which  Sophron  made  popular  about  440  B.C.:  espe- 
cially in  the  15  th  idyl,  an  amusing  account  of  two 

1  Virgil's  similar  poems,  in  which  he  occasionally  imitates 
Theocritus,  are  called  by  the  later  name  of  Eclogues,  'selections,' 
a  general  name  for  short  pieces. 


142  GREEK  LITERATURE.  [part  in. 

Alexandrian  ladies  from  Syracuse  going  to  a  festival. 
Much  in  Theocritus  is  artificial  and  conventional.  But 
there  is  a  true  feeling  for  the  sights  and  sounds  of 
country  life;  the  whisper  of  rustling  leaves  is  in  his 
poetry,  the  murmur  of  bees  over  summer  flowers,  the 
plashing  of  fountains  in  cool  shades,  the  sunny  bright- 
ness of  the  Sicilian  sea.  This,  with  his  dramatic  skill, 
might  well  commend  him  to  dwellers  in  a  city  like  Alex- 
andria. 

10.  Bion,  a  native  of  Ionia,  was  another  pastoral 
poet,  best  known  to  us  by  his  Lament  for  Adonis, 
which  Shelley  has  used  in  his  Adonais,  and  which 
Mrs  Browning  has  translated.  The  burden,  '  Woe  for 
Cytherea,  beautiful  Adonis  is  dead,'  recurs  at  inter- 
vals; such  refrains  are  found  elsewhere,  as  in  the 
choruses  of  Aeschylus,  in  the  first  idyl  of  Theocritus, 
and  in  the  exquisite  lament  of  a  third  pastoral  poet, 
Moschus  of  Syracuse,  for  the  death  of  his  master 
Bion.  Few  verses  in  Greek  have  more  melody  or  more 
pathos  than  those  in  which  Moschus  sings  that  the 
glory  of  the  garden  fades  to  bloom  again,  but  man,  when 
he  is  once  laid  in  the  grave,  sleeps  an  everlasting  sleep. 

1 1.  Parody  and  metrical  satire  flourished  in  the 
Alexandrian  age, — springing,  like  the  pastoral  poetry, 
from  a  Dorian  origin.  Its  most  famous  representa- 
tive was  Timon  of  Phlius  (280  B.C.),  who  in  his 
Parodies  called  Silloi,  couched  in  hexameter  verse, 
satirised  all  the  dogmatic  schools  of  philosophy. 

12.  Prose. — Philology  and  Criticism. — Ze- 
nodotus  (280  b.c),  who  became  Librarian  of  the 
Museum  under  Ptolemy  Philadelphus,  entered  upon 
the  task  of  correcting  and  interpreting  the  texts  of  the 
Greek  poets,  especially  Homer.  He  wrote  memoirs  of 
literary  history,  and  compiled  lists  of  rare  words  or 
phrases.  Aristophanes  of  Byzantium  (200  b.c.) 
extended  his  labours  to  the  prose  writers,  and  sought 
to  preserve  the  true  pronunciation  of  Greek, — which 
mixed  populations  were  rapidly  corrupting, — by  intro- 


chap.  I.]   FROM  ALEXANDER    TO  AUGUSTUS.     143 

ducing  written  signs  to  mark,  in  each  word,  the  syllable 
on  which  the  accent,  i.e.  the  stress  of  the  voice, 
ought  to  fall.  Aristarchus  (156  b.c),  by  his  effort 
to  place  textual  criticism  and  interpretation  on  a  basis 
of  principles,  became  the  founder  of  scientific 
scholarship.  He  rigorously  revised  the  canon,  or 
list  of  first-rate  Greek  writers  in  each  kind,  which  his 
predecessors  had  drawn  up.  Admission  to  one  of 
these  select  classes  constituted  what  is  still  called  a 
classic.  One  great  work  of  these  Alexandrian  scholars 
and  their  followers — work  known  to  us  now  chiefly 
from  the  fragmentary  notices  of  later  commentators — 
was  to  establish  a  science  of  Grammar.  Under 
the  name  of  Apollodorus  (140  b.c),  a  pupil  of 
Aristarchus,  we  have  a  Bibliotheca  or  Library  of  Greek 
mythology  in  3  books ;  which  shows  how  the  old 
literal  belief  in  the  myths  had  survived  the  attempt 
of  Euhemerus  (300  b.c.)  to  resolve  them  into  fact  or 
fiction. 

13.  Translation,  especially  of  sacred  books,  was  a 
province  of  the  learned  labour  of  Alexandria.  The 
Greek  version  of  the  Hebrew  Scriptures  of  the  Old 
Testament  was  begun  at  Alexandria  in  the  first  half  of 
the  third  century  B.  c,  but  was  not  completed  before 
the  end  of  the  second  century  b.  c.  It  was  called  the 
version  of  the  Septuagint  or  Seventy,  perhaps  be- 
cause it  was  authorised  by  the  seventy  members  of  the 
Jewish  Sanhedrim. 

14.  Science. — Eucleides,  or,  as  we  call  him, 
Euclid,  was  at  Alexandria  in  the  reign  of  Ptolemy 
Soter,  and  gave  Geometry  a  system  in  his  famous 
Elements.  Archimedes,  who  died  in  212  b.c,  the- 
reputed  inventor  of  the  screw  {helix),  excelled  in  pure 
and  applied  mechanics.  His  contemporary  Erato- 
sthenes was  the  founder  of  astronomical  geography 
and  of  scientific  chronology.  We  have  a  piece  of 
chronological  work  from  the  Alexandrian  age  in  the 
Parian  Marble,  a  summary  of  events  in  Greek  history 

13 


144  GREEK  LITERATURE.  [part  in. 

from  the  earliest  times  to  264  b.  c,  but  available  in  its 
present  state  only  to  355  b.c. 

15.  Chronology  was  combined  with  history  by  two 
writers  who  borrowed  the  Greek  language  of  the 
governments  under  which  they  lived.  Manetho,  an 
Egyptian  priest  in  the  reign  of  Ptolemy  Philadelphus 
(285 — 247  b.c),  wrote  Chronicles  of  Egypt.  This 
work,  of  which  only  fragments  remain,  traced  31 
dynasties  down  to  the  conquest  of  Egypt  by  Macedon. 
Berosus,  i.e.  Bar-Osea,  a  priest  at  Babylon  in  the 
reign  of  Antiochus  Soter  (280 — 261  B.C.),  carried  the 
Chronicles  of  Chaldaea  down  to  his  own  time.  The 
authority  of  his  work,  based  partly  on  the  temple- 
archives,  has  been  confirmed  by  a  comparison  of  its 
fragments  with  the  Old  Testament. 

16.  Thus  the  Alexandrian  age  busied  itself 
■with  literary  or  scientific  research,  and  with 
setting  in  order  what  the  Greek  mind  had 
done  in  its  creative  time.  This  spirit  of  many- 
sided  labour  lived  on  into  the  Byzantine  age,  pro- 
ducing histories,  miscellanies,  lexicons,  down  to  the 
taking  of  Constantinople  by  the  Turks  (1453),  when 
exiled  Greeks  began  to  spread  the  knowledge  of  their 
language  and  literature  more  widely  through  Western 
Europe. 

17.  Greece  became  subject  to  Rome  in  146  b.c 
The  result  was  to  bring  Rome  into  closer  and  more 
constant  intercourse  with  the  mind  of  Greece,  and  to 
begin  that  process,  not  completed  till  the  time  of 
Augustus,  by  which  the  political  life  of  Hellenism  was 
absorbed  into  the  universal  system  of  Rome.  The 
first  part  of  the  Graeco- Roman  period  in  Greek 
Literature  extends  to  the  close  of  the  Roman 
Republic. 

18.  Polybius,  the  greatest  Greek  historian  after 
Herodotus  and  Thucydides,  stands  on  the  border  be- 
tween the  great  Alexandrian  age  and  that  literature  of 
which  Rome  was  the  central  inspiration.    He  was  born 


chap,  i.]  FROM  ALEXANDER    TO  AUGUSTUS.     145 

about  210,  and  died  about  128  b.c.  Seldom  has 
so  wide  a  variety  of  political  experience  been  crowded 
into  one  life-time.  His  youth  and  early  manhood  fell 
on  the  days  when  the  League  of  the  Achaean  cities  was 
making  its  last  stand  against  Rome.-  He  was  thus 
familiar  with  the  earliest  example  of  Federal  Govern- 
ment— i.  e.  a  league  of  communities  in  which  each  has 
control  of  its  home  affairs,  but  obeys  a  common  au- 
thority in  things  which  touch  the  common  interest. 
His  father  Lycortas  was  captain  of  the  League  in 
185-4  B.C.,  and  came  into  office  again  when  Philopoe- 
men — the  last  hero  of  ancient  Greece — died  in  183. 
When  the  Romans  had  conquered  Perseus,  King  of 
Macedon,  Polybius  was  one  of  the  1000  Achaeans  who 
were  carried  off  to  Rome.  He  was  taken  into  the 
house  of  Aemilius  Paulus,  whose  second  son,  the 
younger  Scipio,  was  his  friend ;  and,  after  1 7  years,  he 
procured  the  release  of  the  other  Achaeans.  He  was 
with  Scipio  at  the  destruction  of  Carthage  in  146,  and 
saw  the  burning  of  Corinth  in  the  same  year.  The 
cities  of  the  Achaean  League  then  became  subject  to 
Rome,  and  Polybius  was  allowed  by  the  Roman  Com- 
missioners to  arrange  the  details  of  the  new  con- 
stitution (145  B.C.).  He  earned  the  gratitude  of  his 
countrymen ;  and  statues  in  his  honour  were  set  up 
in  several  cities,  including  his  native  Megalopolis  in 
Arcadia. 

19.  His  History,  in  40  books,  was  a  record  of 
Roman  conquest  from  264  b.c.  to  146  B.C.  We  have 
only  the  first  5  books,  and  large  extracts,  or  shorter 
fragments,  of  Books  vi. — xl.  (i)  Books  1.  and  11. 
are  introductory,  linking  on  the  History  to  that  of 
Timaeus,  which  ended  at  264  B.c.  They  deal  chiefly 
with  the  First  Punic  War  (263-241)  and  the  Achaean 
League.  (2)  Book  in.  carries  the  Second  Punic  War 
down  to  the  Battle  of  Cannae  (218-216);  Books  iv. 
and  v.  treat  of  Wars  in  Greece  and  Syria.  The  follow- 
ing books,  to  the  30th  inclusive,  traced  Roman  con- 


146  GREEK  LITERATURE.  [part  hi. 

quest  to  168  b.c.  The  31st  to  the  40th  covered  the 
period  167 — 146  B.C.  Polybius  used  some  Roman 
authorities,  as  the  annalist  Fabius  Pictor;  and  Livy, 
from  the  beginning  of  the  second  Punic  War,  makes 
large  use  of  Polybius. 

20.  Rome,  says  Polybius,  is  the  noblest  atid  most  bene- 
ficent work  of  Fortune.  But  this  '  Fortune '  is  no  blind 
force ;  rather,  in  his  own  phrase,  an  honest  umpire,  an  in- 
telligent Providence,  which  has  given  the  prize  of  empire 
to  an  imperial  people.  Polybius  felt  the  inborn  fitness 
of  the  Romans  to  govern.  His  own  age  decided  that, 
as  Greece  was  first  in  the  things  of  the  mind,  so 
Rome  was  to  rule  the  nations.  The  bent  of  his  great 
work  was  to  show  that  this  was  no  accident,  but  the 
deliberate  purpose  of  a  wise  Power.  '  The  whole  earth 
subject  to  Rome''  is  his  vision.  Yet  he  writes  neither  as 
a  Roman,  nor  as  a  Greek  who  flatters  Rome,  but  as  a 
Greek  with  keen  insight  and  a  clear  sense  of  harmony. 
Of  earlier  history  he  is  not  always  a  good  judge ;  he 
shows  that  he  did  not  understand  the  growth  of  the 
Roman  constitution,  and  he  misjudges  Demosthenes ; 
but  he  understood  the  lessons  of  his  own  wonderful 
age.  He  had  known  Achaia,  Macedonia,  Syria,  Car- 
thage all,  in  different  measures,  independent  of  Rome  ; 
and  he  had  seen  each  in  turn  subdued  by  her.  His 
style  has  been  called  'a  camp  style.'  It  is  plain, 
straightforward,  sometimes  rough;  but  it  has  not  the 
faults  of  the  contemporary  rhetoric.  His  work  has 
the  further  interest  of  being  the  oldest  and  best  in 
the  common  dialect,  based  on  the  Attic,  which 
dates  from  about  300  B.c,  and  is  distinguished  by  a 
few  peculiar  forms,  but  chiefly  by  a  less  pure  voca- 
bulary. 

2 1 .  All  things  gradually  converged  towards  Rome. 
The  learning  of  Alexandria  and  Athens  was  brought 
thither  by  the  numerous  Greek  men  of  letters  who 
found  patrons  or  pupils  in  Roman  families.  From 
about  80  b.  c,  Greek  literature,  especially  Rhetoric, 


chap.  II.]  FROM  AUGUSTUS   TO  JUSTINIAN.       147 

became  thoroughly  established  in  the  higher  Roman 
education.  The  study  of  History  and  Geography 
also  nourished. 

22.  Diodorus  Siculus  (40  b.c.)  wrote  a  history 
of  the  world  in  40  books,  down  to  Caesar's  Gallic  Wars. 
We  have  only  Books  1. — v.,  dealing  with  the  early  or 
mythical  history  of  Egypt,  Assyria,  Aethiopia  and 
Greece;  and  Books  xi. — xx.,from  the  invasion  of  Greece 
by  Xerxes  (480  b.c.)  to  302  b.c.  ;  with  fragments.  This 
Historical  Library  was,  as  the  title  implies,  less  a 
single  history  than  a  series  of  histories,  founded  on  the 
labours  of  predecessors,  and  grouped  round  the  point 
which  Polybius  had  recognised  as  henceforth  the 
centre  of  political  interests — Rome. 

23.  Historians  had  now  ceased  to  produce  original 
works  with  an  artistic  unity,  such  as. those  of  Herodotus 
and  Thucydides.  Their  aim  was  to  present,  in  new  com- 
binations or  more  lucid  arrangements,  facts  amassed 
by  previous  writers.  This  endeavour  becomes  the 
source  of  the  most  useful  work  which  marks  the 
closing  centuries  of  the  old  literature. 

CHAPTER    II. 

from  augustus  to  justinian. 

30  b.c.— 529  a.d. 

GraeCO-Roman  period  continued.  —  I.  History ',  Biography, 
Geography:  Dionysius  of  Halicarnassus,  25  B.C.:  Plutarch,  90 
A.D. :  Strabo,  18  A.D.:  Pausanias,  160  A.D. — II.  Erudition: 
Athenaeus,  190  A.D. — III.  Rhetoric and  Belles Lettres :  Lucian, 
160  A.D.;  Libanius,  350  A.D.;  Heliodorus,  390  A.D. — IV. 
Philosophy:  Stoics:  Epictetus,  90  a.d.;  Marcus  Aurelius, 
170  A.D.  Neoplatonists :  Plotinus,  Porphyry,  Iamblichus, 
250 — 300  A.D.  School  of  Athens:  Proclus,  450  A.D.— 
V.  Verse:  Babrius,  40  A.D. ;  Oppian,  180  a.d.;  Nonnus, 
Quintus  Smyrnaeus,  400 — 450  a.d.;  Musaeus,  500  A.D. — 
Mystic  poetry. — Anthology. — 'Sibylline  Oracles.' 

i.  Under  the  Roman  Empire  the  Greek  language 
and  literature  were  diffused  throughout  the  civilised 


148  GREEK  LITERATURE.  [part  in. 

world.  Institutions  resembling  universities  arose  in 
the  great  cities.  Teachers  recognised  by  the  State 
gave  celebrity  to  the  schools  of  Alexandria  and 
Antioch,  of  Tarsus  and  Rhodes,  of  Pergamus  and 
Byzantium,  of  Athens  and  Rome,  of  Marseilles  and 
Lyons.  The  varied  literature  of  Hellenism  in  the  five 
centuries  from  Augustus  to  Justinian  has  four  great 
departments  : — History,  with  the  neighbouring  pro- 
vinces of  Biography  and  Geography;  Erudition, 
including  grammar,  criticism,  archaeology  and  literary 
miscellanies ;  Rhetoric,  in  theory  and  practice,  with 
kindred  forms  of  ornamental  prose,  such  as  Dialogues, 
Novels  and  Letters;  Philosophy,  represented 
chiefly  by  Stoics  and  Neoplatonists.  In  Poetry  there 
is  little  to  record. 

2.  History. — Dionysius  of  Halicarnassus  (25 
B.C.),  in  his  Archaeology,  i.  e.  Early  History,  of  Rome 
to  264  b.c.  aimed  at  writing  an  Introduction  to 
Polybius.  He  maintains,  on  fanciful  grounds,  that 
the  Romans,  who  deserve  to  rule  the  world,  are  no 
1  barbarians,'  but  of  Greek  descent.  We  have  Books 
1. — x.,  going  down  to  450  B.C.,  and  fragments  of  Book 
XI.  He  did  a  better  work  in  his  rhetorical  writings, 
and  above  all  in  his  excellent  essays  on  the  Greek 
orators.  His  object  was  to  revive  a  true  standard 
of  Attic  prose  ;  and  in  this  he  was  aided  by  his 
friend  Caecilius,  of  Calacte  in  Sicily,  who  devoted 
himself  especially  to  the  province  of  verbal  scholar- 
ship. 

3.  Josephus,  of  a  noble  Jewish  family,  wrote  in 
Greek  the  Early  History  of  the  Jews,  to  66  a.d.,  in 
20  books,  on  the  model  of  Dionysius ;  and  the  History 
of  the  Jewish  War  in  7  books.  The  latter,  his  best 
work,  extends  from  the  capture  of  Jerusalem  by  Antio- 
chus  Epiphanes  in  170  b.c.  to  its  capture  by  Titus, 
which  the  historian  witnessed. 

4.  Arrian,  born  about  100  a.  d.,  and  raised  to  con- 
sular rank  by  M.  Antoninus  Pius  in  146,  emulated 


chap.  II.]  FROM  AUGUSTUS  TO  JUSTINIAN.       M9 

Xenophon's  Anabasis  by  relating  the  Asiatic  Expedi- 
tion of  Alexander  the  Great  in  7  books,  of  which  we 
have  all  but  the  end  of  the  7th  ;  and,  after  the  example 
of  Xenophon's  contemporary  Ctesias  (a  Greek  physician 
at  the  Persian  court)  wrote,  in  the  Ionic  dialect,  an 
Indian  History,  including  the  voyage  of  Alexander's 
general  Nearchus  from  the  mouth  of  the  Indus  to  the 
Persian  Gulf.  And,  as  Xenophon  preserved  records 
of  his  master  Socrates,  so  Arrian  preserved  records  of 
his  master  Epictetus,  who,  like  Socrates,  left  nothing 
written.  From  Appian  (140  a.d.)  we  have  still  10 
books,  besides  fragments,  of  a  History  of  Rome,  divided 
according  to  the  countries.  Herodian  (240  a.d.) 
has  left  a  history  of  the  Emperors  from  Commodus  to 
Gordian  (180 — 238  A.D.),  in  a  style  far  from  pure,  but 
not  without  dramatic  force. 

5.  Biography. — Plutarch  was  born  at  Chaeronea 
in  Boeotia  about  40  a.d.  He  frequently  visited  Rome, 
and  received  honours  from  the  emperors  Trajan  and 
Hadrian ;  but  he  never  thoroughly  mastered  Latin ; 
and,  though  he  could  use  Roman  annalists,  the  only 
allusion  to  Roman  poetry  in  all  his  works  is  a  quota- 
tion from  Horace  in  his  life  of  Lucullus.  Greece  in 
his  day  had  been  almost  drained  of  inhabitants ;  he 
tells  us  that  the  whole  country  could  not  put  more 
than  3000  men  in  the  field — the  number  sent  in  old 
days  by  one  little  town,  Megara,  to  Plataea.  It  may 
have  been  partly  the  wish  to  remind  the  world  that 
Greece  could  once  breed  as  good  men  as  Rome  that 
led  him  to  write  his  46  Parallel  Lives.  These 
1  Lives '  are  in  pairs,  one  Greek  and  one  Roman  in 
each  pair.  The  ground  of  comparison  is  sometimes 
rather  slight ;  thus  Alcibiades  and  Coriolanus  seem  to  be 
joined  merely  because  both  were  slain  in  banishment. 
There  are  also  four  detached  Lives — Artaxerxes  II. 
(Mnemon),  Araius,  founder  of  the  Achaean  League, 
and  the  Emperors  Galba  and  Otho.  These  Lives  are 
vivid  portraits  of  character,  with  some  brilliant  his- 

22* 


IS©  GREEK  LITERATURE.  [part  hi. 

torical  pictures.  Plutarch  was  useful  to  Shakspere 
(through  North's  translation)  in  the  Roman  plays. 

The  Moralia  or  'Ethical  Works '  are  a  collection 
of  about  80  pieces,  by  no  means  all  on  ethical  subjects, 
but  also  on  history,  archaeology,  and  physical  science. 
Some  of  the  best  ethical  pieces  are  those  on  Garrulity, 
on  False  Shame,  on  Restraining  Anger,  on  the  Delays 
of  Divine  Justice.  Among  works  wrongly  ascribed  to 
Plutarch  are  the  '  Lives  of  the  Ten  Orators,'  a  '  Life 
of  Homer,'  and  probably  the  collections  of  Apoph- 
thegms. These  '  Sayings '  are  sometimes  neat.  There 
is  one  of  a  flute-player,  with  whom  Philip  of  Macedon 
was  arguing  about  music,  replying,  '  Heaven  forbid 
that  your  Majesty  should  understand  these  things  as 
well  as  I  do.:  Some  Olynthian  traitors  complained  to 
Philip  that  the  Macedonians  taunted  them  with  having 
destroyed  their  native  town.  'The  Macedonians,' 
Philip  answered,  'are  boorish  creatures;  they  call  a 
spade  a  spade.' 

6.  Diogenes  Laertius,  who  is  usually  placed  early 
in  the  third  century,  in  his  eighty-four  Lives  of  the 
Philosophers,  deals  with  the  early  schools  of  Greek 
Philosophy,  with  the  schools  of  Plato  and  Aristotle, 
and,  in  fuller  detail,  with  Epicurus.  Though  neither 
an  accurate  nor  an  elegant  writer,  he  is  often  valuable 
as  supplying  information  which  is  preserved  nowhere 
else.  Flavius  Philostratus  (235  a.d.),  in  his  59 
Lives  of  the  Sophists,  gives  us  valuable  material  for 
the  later  history  of  Rhetoric.  In  his  Pictures  (Eikones) 
he  has  described  66  paintings  of  various  classes,  pro- 
fessedly from  real  works  in  a  gallery  at  Naples,  but 
more  probably  from  his  own  imagination.  Though 
essentially  rhetorical  in  conception,  this  curious  and 
once  popular  treatise  is  of  much  interest  for  art- 
history.  Appollonius  of  Tyana  (50  A.D.),  whose  Life 
Philostratus  has  written,  was  a  renowned  mystic,  com- 
bining pythagoreanism  with  oriental  magic,  who  in 
the  third  century  received  divine  honours.     The  Em- 


chap.  II.]  FROM  AUGUSTUS   TO  JUSTINIAN.       151 

peror  Alexander  Severus  placed  the  bust  of  this 
pretended  miracle-worker  in  his  Larium  along  with 
those  of  Abraham,  Orpheus  and  Christ. 

7.  Geography — Strabo  (18  a.d.)  wrote  a  geo- 
graphical work  in  17  books,  describing  Europe  (Bks. 
iv. — x.),  Asia  (xi. — xvi.),  Egypt  and  Libya  (xvn.). 
His  feeling  is  everywhere  literary  rather  than  pic- 
turesque ;  places  interest  him  as  the  scenes  of  great 
deeds  or  because  they  are  mentioned  in  great  poems. 
Pausanias  (160  a.d.)  has  left  a  Tour  of  Greece  in 
10  books — (going  through  Attica — Corinth — Laconia 
—  Messenia  —  Elis  —  Achaia —  Arcadia  —  Boeotia — 
Phocis) — which  is  of  the  greatest  value  for  the  details 
of  topography  and  the  monuments  of  art.  Some- 
what in  the  spirit  of  Herodotus,  but  less  simply  and 
freshly,  he  seeks  to  bring  out  the  religious  meaning 
of  all  that  he  sees  on  this  sacred  ground  of  Greece. 
Ptolemy  (Claudius  Ptolemaeus)  of  Alexandria  (160 
a.d.)  built  up  a  mathematical  system  of  astronomy  and 
geography  which  was  universally  received  until,  in  the 
course  of  the  16th  and  17th  centuries,  the  system  of 
Copernicus  displaced  it.  Ptolemy  believed  that  the 
sun,  planets  and  stars  revolved  round  the  earth.  His 
error  in  calculating  the  circumference  of  the  globe 
warranted  Columbus  in  supposing  that  the  distance 
from  the  western  coast  of  Europe  to  the  eastern  coast 
of  Asia  was  about  one-third  less  than  it  actually  is ; 
and  thus  encouraged  the  enterprise  which  led  to  the 
discovery  of  America. 

8.  Erudition  continued  to  be  fertile  in  the  vari- 
ous branches  of  grammatical  or  critical  work  com- 
menced at  Alexandria.  Among  its  products  in  this 
kind  may  be  named  the  contribution  to  Greek  lexi- 
cography made  by  Julius  Pollux  in  the  second 
century.  The  physician  Galen  (160  a.d.)  wrote  com- 
mentaries both  on  Plato  and  on  Hippocrates,  the 
founder  of  Greek  Medical  Science,  whose  works,  in 
the  Ionic  dialect,  belong  to  the  close  of  the  5th  cen- 


152  GREEK  LITERATURE.  [part  in. 

tury  B.C.  Galen's  distinctive  aim  was  to  place  medical 
science  on  a  psychological  basis  by  studying  the 
affections  of  the  body  in  connexion  with  those  of  the 
soul.  Athenaeus  (190  a.d.)  represents  a  new  and 
popular  form  of  learned  work.  In  his  Doctors  at  Dinner 
(Deipnosophistae,  in  15  books)  he  gives  us  a  miscellany 
under  the  form  of  a  conversation,  which  ranges  over 
everything  from  Homer  to  cucumbers; — literature, 
natural  history,  medicine,  manners,  grammar.  The 
work  conveys  some  idea  of  the  loss  suffered  by  the 
destruction  of  the  Alexandrian  library.  At  least  700 
authors  are  named  who  would  otherwise  be  unknown. 
The  Stratagems  of  Polyaenus  (170  a.d.)  illustrate,  by 
more  than  800  anecdotes,  the  art  of  generalship,  and 
occasionally  of  statecraft.  From  Aelian  (220  a.d.) 
we  have  a  large  collection  of  miscellaneous  gleanings 
in  history,  biography  and  archaeology.  The  Selections 
and  Anthology  of"  Stobaeus  (480  a.d.)  form  another 
example;  and  a  peculiarly  valuable  one  is  supplied,  in 
the  Byzantine  age,  by  the  Library  of  the  Patriarch 
Photius. 

9.  Rhetoric  was  reduced  to  a  complete  system 
by  Hermogenes  (170  a.d.).  His  work  was  long  the 
standard  text-book  of  an  art  which  employed  the  best 
energies  of  the  age.  Early  in  the  fourth  century,  how- 
ever, it  found  a  rival  in  the  treatise  of  Aphthonius, 
which,  at  the  Revival  of  Letters,  once  more  became  a 
favourite  manual.  Cassius  Longinus  (260  a.d.),  one 
of  the  most  accomplished  Greeks  of  the  third  cen- 
tury, and  minister  of  Queen  Zenobia  at  Palmyra, 
has  left  a  treatise  on  Rhetoric.  To  him  is  ascribed, 
though  doubtfully,  the  essay  On  Sublimity,  one  of  the 
best  pieces  of  literary  criticism  in  the  language.  From 
the  end  of  the  first  century  a.d.  rhetorical  eminence 
became  the  chief  road  to  public  distinction.  Chairs 
of  Rhetoric  were  posts  of  peculiar  honour  in  the 
great  cities  of  Asia  and  Europe.  '  Even  Thule,'  cries 
Juvenal,  'talks  of  engaging  an  orator.' 


chap,  ii.]  FROM  AUGUSTUS   TO  JUSTINIAN.       153 

10.  Public  teachers  of  Rhetoric  were  now  offi- 
cially distinguished  by  the  name  of  Sophist,  an  old 
term  revived  in  a  special  sense  as  an  academic  title, 
nearly  equivalent,  at  this  period,  to  the  medieval 
'doctor.'  We  have  specimens  of  this  new  oratory 
from  such  writers  as  Dion  Chrysostom  at  the  close 
of  the  first  century;  from  Aelius  Aristeides  in 
the  second ;  and,  in  the  fourth,  from  Themistius, 
Himerius  and  Libanius:  of  whom  the  two  last  num- 
bered among  their  pupils  the  Christian  Fathers 
Gregory  of  Nazianzus,  Basil  and  Chrysostom.  The 
writings  of  another  famous  rhetorician  of  the  second 
century,  Herodes  Atticus,  are  lost.  Libanius  gives 
us  some  curious  glimpses  of  University  life  at  Athens 
and  at  Antioch.  '  Some  of  them,'  he  says — referring  to 
his  disciples  at  Antioch — '  stand  like  statues,  with  their 
arms  folded  on  each  other ;  others  sit  stock  still,  un- 
moved by  my  strokes  of  brilliancy  or  wit.  Some  try 
to  interrupt  those  who  feel  stirred.  Others  vacantly 
count  the  numbers  in  the  room ;  or  stare  at  the  trees 
that  grow  outside.'  At  Athens  the  students  were  or- 
ganised in  factions,  and  carried  off  a  new  comer  by 
force  to  their  favourite  Sophist, 

11.  Rhetorical  studies  further  helped  to  form  an 
ornate  literary  prose,  which  took  various  light  forms. 
Lucian  (160  a.d.),  a  native  of  Samosata  on  the 
Euphrates,  lived  to  write  Attic  prose  which,  though 
by  no  means  faultless,  was  the  best  that  had  been 
written  for  400  years.  His  Dialogues  of  the  Gods, 
almost  Homeric  in  their  freshness  and  almost  Aristo- 
phanic  in  their  fun,  bring  out  the  ludicrous  side  of  the 
popular  Greek  faith ;  the  Dialogues  of  the  Dead  are 
brilliant  satires  on  the  living.  In  his  Auction  of  Philo- 
sophers the  gods  knock  down  each  of  the  great 
thinkers  to  the  highest  bidder;  Socrates  goes  for 
about  £500;  Aristotle  for  a  fifth  of  that  sum.  In 
another  piece,  Lucian  himself  is  tried  for  this  jest- 
ing; but  is  acquitted,  with  the  approval. of  Plato  and 


154  GREEK  LITERATURE.  [part  in. 

others.  Much  historical  interest  belongs  to  his  sketch 
of  Peregrinus,  a  man  whom  he  represents  as  having 
been  a  Christian.  Lucian  notices  several  traits  in  the 
'strange  philosophy'  of  the  Christians;  their  hope  of 
immortality  and  their  patience  unto  death ;  their  hold- 
ing of  their  goods  in  common;  and  their  teaching 
that  all  men  are  brothers.  His  Timon,  the  misan- 
thrope, is  interesting  in  connexion  with  Shakspere's 
play.  The  Veracious  History,  a  mock  narrative  of 
travel,  is  the  original  of  such  books  as  Gulliver's 
Travels.  Lucian  has  much  in  common  with  Swift, 
and  more,  perhaps,  with  Voltaire. 

12.  The  Emperor  Julian  {b.  331 — d.  363  a.d.) 
claims  mention  here,  less  for  his  extant  orations  or 
addresses  than  for  his  satirical  pieces.  His  Emperors, 
or  the  Banquet,  is  a  criticism,  in  the  form  of  a  dialogue, 
on  his  predecessors,  in  which  Marcus  Aurelius  is  ex- 
tolled and  Constantine  disparaged.  The  Misopogon, 
or  Beard-Hater,  is  a  satire  levelled  at  the  people  of 
Antioch,  who  during  a  visit  of  Julian  had  insulted 
the  opinions,  and  even  the  beard,  of  their  sovereign. 

13.  The  Greek  Romance,  or  Novel,  originated 
not  later  than  the  age  of  Augustus,  and  had  two  chief 
lines  of  descent.  One  of  these  was  purely  Greek,  and 
is  represented  by  Xenophon  the  Ephesian  (probably 
not  later  than  360  a.d.)  in  his  elegant  but  somewhat 
frigid  Tale  of  Ephesus,  the  love-story  of  Anthia  and 
Habrocomes ;  and  by  the  charming  pastoral  romance, 
Daphnis  and  C/iloe,  which  bears  the  name  of  Longus. 
The  other  series  was  influenced,  through  Syria,  by 
oriental  and  especially  by  Indian  fiction.  Its  best 
representative  is  Heliodorus  (390  a.d.).  His  Tale 
of  Aethiopia  relates  the  fortunes  of  Chariclea,  a 
priestess  at  Delphi,  and  Theagenes,  a  Thessalian  with 
whom  she  flies  to  Egypt.  After  many  perils  and  sepa- 
rations they  reach  Aethiopia,  and  are  on  the  point  of 
being  immolated  to  the  sun  and  moon,  when  it  is 
discovered   that   Chariclea    is    the   daughter  of   the 


chap.  II.]  FROM  AUGUSTUS    TO  JUSTINIAN.       155 

Aethiopian  king, — having,  by  a  miracle,  been  born 
white ;  and  the  union  of  the  lovers  is  followed  by  the 
introduction  of  a  more  humane  religion.  Achilles 
Tatius  and  Chariton  were  inferior  followers  of 
Heliodorus. 

14.  Three  books  of  fictitious  Letters,  written  with 
vivacity  in  an  artificial  Attic  style,  bear  the  name  of 
Alciphron  (about  180  a.d.).  They  represent  a  kind 
of  literature  popular  from  the  beginning  of  the  second 
century,  and  derive  much  of  their  material  from  the 
New  Attic  Comedy. 

15.  As  the  early  Church  grew  in  social  power,  it 
began  to  desire  a  counterpoise  for  the  light  literature 
of  paganism.  Christian  Greek  Romances,  often 
written  by  Greek  converts,  were  numerous  from  the 
beginning  of  the  fourth  century.  Some  of  these 
romances  related  martyrdoms,  historical  or  fictitious. 
Others  were  tales  of  monastic  life.  Others  were 
imaginary  journeys, — such  as  the  'Voyage  of  Ma- 
carius  to  Paradise.'  Others  '  had  a  controversial 
purpose.  Thus  Abraham  the  Jew  atid  the  Merchant 
Theodore  was  a  plea  for  the  worship  of  images. 
Theodore,  ruined  by  a  shipwreck  and  repulsed  by  his 
friends,  borrows  money  from  Abraham,  invoking,  as 
his  only  security,  the  great  Christ  set  up  by  Constan- 
tine  in  the  copper-market  before  the  palace  at 
Byzantium.  Again  Theodore  loses  all,  and  again  the 
Jew  trusts  him.  Theodore  sails  westward,  and  this 
time  prospers.  Wishing  to  repay  Abraham,  but  find- 
ing no  messenger,  he  puts  the  money  in  a  box,  and 
commits  it,  in  the  name  of  Christ,  to  the  waves.  It  is 
washed  to  the  feet  of  the  Jew  on  the  shore  of  the  Sea 
of  Marmora.  But,  when  Theodore  returns,  Abraham, 
to  try  him,  feigns  that  he  has  not  received  it.  Theo- 
dore requires  him  to  make  oath  before  the  Christ 
And  as  Theodore,  standing  before  the  image,  passion- 
ately prays,  the  heart  of  his  benefactor  is  turned  to 
faith  in  the  surety  of  the  friendless. 

14 


156  GREEK  LITERATURE.  [part  111. 

16.  Philosophy,  during  these  centuries,  is  re- 
presented chiefly  by  the  Stoics  and  the  Neoplatonists. 
The  Stoic  School,  with  its  unbroken  Greek  tradition 
from  the  beginning  of  the  third  century  B.C.,  was  dis- 
tinguished under  the  Empire  as  that  School  which 
most  earnestly  sought  to  find  a  practical  rule  of  life. 

17.  Epictetus,  born  at  the  Phrygian  Hierapolis 
(a  place  mentioned  by  St  Paul  in  his  Epistle  to  the 
Church  of  the  neighbouring  Colossae)  was  the  sickly, 
deformed  slave  of  Epaphroditus,  a  profligate  and  cruel 
freedman  of  Nero,  afterwards  put  to  death  by  Do- 
mitian  for  having  done  Nero  the  service  of  helping 
him  to  kill  himself.  There  is  a  story  of  the  master 
twisting  the  leg  of  his  slave  Epictetus,  who  said,  '  If 
you  go  on,  you  will  break  it ; '  he  did  go  on,  and  did 
break  it,  when  Epictetus  merely  said,  'I  told  you 
so.'  Later  in  life,  Epictetus  somehow  got  his  free- 
dom. He  was  driven  from  Rome  by  the  edict  of 
Domitian  banishing  philosophers  in  94  a.d.,  and 
retired  to  Nicopolis  in  Epeirus,  where  Arrian  was  his 
pupil,  and  took  the  notes  from  which,  nearly  in  his 
master's  words,  he  has  given  us  the  Discourses  of 
Epictetus  (once  in  8,  now  in  4  books),  and  the  Manual, 
a  summary. 

The  philosophy  of  Epictetus  is  Stoic  with  Socratic 
elements.  Confining  his  attention  to  practical  Ethics, 
he  teaches  that  the  beginning  of  wisdom  is  to 
discern  between  what  is,  and  what  is  not,  in  our 
own  power.  The  one  thing  which  is  in  our  power 
is  to  judge  rightly — with  the  aid  of  a  Guiding 
Spirit  placed  in  us  by  God — concerning  appearances 
(phantasiae),  and  so  to  secure  our  happiness  by  living 
in  accord  with  Nature,  that  is,  in  accord  with  the 
divine  order  of  the  universe.  Not  in  our  power  are 
all  external  things,  such  as  poverty,  failure,  death. 
These  things  we  must  meet  calmly.  And  we  must 
abstain  from  all  things  likely  to  weaken  the  soul's 
power  over  the  one  thing  which  it  can  control.    Hence 


chap.  II.]  FROM  AUGUSTUS   TO  JUSTINIAN.       157 

the  rule — ' Bear  and  forbear?  Epictetus  does  not  ex- 
press belief  in  a  future  life.  He  holds  that  well-doing  is 
its  own  reward.  Man,  he  teaches,  should  always  be 
content,  knowing  that  God  chooses  for  men  better  than 
they  could  themselves.  '  In  the  place  of  all  other  de- 
lights substitute  this, — that  of  being  conscious  that  you 
are  obeying  God.'  God  brings  man  into  life  :  '  and 
when  he  leads  you  out — after  seeing  the  spectacle  and 
the  solemnity — will  you  not  go  out  with  adoration  of 
him,  and  thanks  for  what  you  have  seen  and  heard?' 

1 8.  As  Epictetus  dwelt  rather  on  the  moral  dignity 
of  man,  so  the  Emperor  Marcus  Aurelius  Anto- 
ninus (121 — 180  a.d.)  dwelt  especially  upon  his 
need  of  divine  support.  Twelve  books,  written  in 
Greek,  contain  the  thoughts  which  he  set  down 
from  time  to  time,  and  which  are  usually  called 
his  'Meditations.'  They  do  not  show  the  Greek 
feeling  for  the  beauty  of  goodness ;  they  have  not  the 
subtle  religious  sense  of  the  Hebrews ;  but  they  ex- 
press, without  enthusiasm,  a  humble  and  unfaltering 
reliance  on  a  Providence  which  orders  human  affairs. 
In  this  religious  philosophy  God  is  at  once  a  person 
and  a  law.  He  dwells  in  the  human  reason ;  man's 
first  duty  is  to  obey  this  divinity,  this  '  ruling  faculty ' 
within  him, — to  keep  it  free  from  violence,  above 
pains  and  pleasures ;  awaiting  death  as  a  breaking  up 
of  the  elements  that  form  man.  Nothing  can  be 
evil  that  is  'according  to  Nature,'  that  is,  according 
to  God.  Forgive  injuries ;  all  men  are  brethren ; 
each  must  love  and  cherish  the  rest,  and  try  to  make 
them  better,  even  when  they  wish  him  evil.  The  best 
revenge  is,  not  to  be  like  the  wrong  doer.  This 
creed  sustained  Marcus  Aurelius  under  domestic  trial, 
and  when,  amid  war  and  pestilence,  he  saw  the  Em- 
pire declining:  nor  should  it  be  forgotten  that  he,  like 
Epictetus,  shows  no  clear  hope  of  another  life. 

19.  While  Stoicism  was  thus  pre-eminently  a  moral 
guide,  Neoplatonism  strove  to  seize  the  essence  of 


158  GREEK  LITERATURE.  [part  hi. 

knowledge  and  of  existence.  The  oriental  element 
traceable  in  Plato  was  developed  at  Alexandria,  largely 
under  Jewish  influences,  into  a  mystic  doctrine.  By  as- 
cetic discipline  and  intense  contemplation  the  soul  may 
achieve  complete  abstraction  from  the  world  of  the 
senses,  and  may  attain  to  complete  union  (heliosis) 
with  God,  the  source  of  all  knowledge.  This  doc- 
trine, defined  by  Numenius  (150  a.d.)  and  developed 
by  Ammonius  Saccas,  was  expounded  in  writing  by 
the  pupil  of  the  latter,  Plotinus  (240  a.  d.),  who 
claimed  inspiration  and  miraculous  power,  and  averred 
that,  four  times  during  his  life,  in  ecstatic  trance,  he 
had  risen  to  the  union  with  deity.  His  disciple  and 
editor  Porphyrv,  and  the  pupil  of  the  latter,  Iambli- 
chus,  a  mystic  who  forestalled  the  extravagance  of 
a  dervish,  continued  the  laborious  enthusiasm.  It 
found  a  more  gifted  witness  in  the  beautiful  and 
noble-hearted  Hypatia,  who  was  cruelly  murdered  by 
the  fanatic  mob  of  Alexandria  in  415  a.d. 

20.  In  the  fifth  century  calmer  minds,  still  to  be 
found  in  the  School  of  Athens,  made  a  last  effort 
to  rally  the  forces  of  Greek  wisdom.  Proclus  (450 
a.d.)  sought  to  combine  whatever  was  scientific 
in  the  conceptions  of  Neoplatonism  with  the  best 
elements  of  earlier  systems.  The  attempt  failed  :  and 
his  followers  were  equally  unsuccessful.  The  victory 
of  Christianity  over  the  thought  of  the  age  was  already 
all  but  complete  when  the  edict  of  Justinian  formally 
closed  the  schools  of  heathen  philosophy  (529  a.d.). 

it.  Meanwhile,  for  seven  hundred  years,  the 
higher  Poetry  had  been  almost  silent.  Babrius 
(40  a.d.)  put  into  choliambic  verse  the  Fables  ascribed 
to  Aesop,  whose  legendary  date  is  about  560  B.C.,  but 
from  whom  we  have  no  authentic  remains.  Plato  de- 
scribes Socrates  in  prison  amusing  himself  by  putting 
such  fables  into  verse.  'The  Wolf  and  the  Lamb'  is  a 
fair  sample  of  the  skill  of  Babrius,  who  was  freely 
translated  into  Latin  by  Phaedrus.    Oppian  (180  a.d.) 


chap,  ii.]  FROM  AUGUSTUS   TO  JUSTINIAN.       159 

wrote  the  Fisher's  Art  (Halieutica),  a  clever  epic  of 
the  didactic  sort  in  5  books,  on  the  habits  of  fish  and 
the  modes  of  capturing  them.  He  is  also  the  reputed 
author  of  the  epic  on  Hunting  (Cynegetica),  in  4  books, 
— greatly  inferior  to  the  other,  but  with  some  good 
descriptions.  Buffon  consulted  it.  Nonnus,  early  in 
the  fifth  century,  gave  epic  poetry  a  short,  flickering  life; 
his  huge  epic  On  the  Adventures  of  Dionysus  is  a  ro- 
mance of  physical  nature, — fervent,  but  often  turgid, 
and  showing  an  Egyptian  taste  for  crude  colour.  Quin- 
tus  Smyrnaeus  (450  a.d.)  wrote  a  sequel  to  the  Iliad 
in  14  books,  carrying  it  down  to  the  capture  of 
Troy ;  and  though  devoid  of  poetical  originality,  is  of 
value  for  the  study  of  Homer.  Under  the  name  of 
Musaeus  (500  a.d.  ?)  we  have  340  verses,  of  much 
beauty,  on  the  story  of  Leander  swimming  the  Helles- 
pont to  see  Hero. 

22.  Poetry  of  a  mystic  character  forms  a  special 
province  of  the  later  Greek  verse.  The  Argonautica 
(which  must  be  distinguished  from  the  poem  of  Apol- 
lonius  Rhodius)  is  an  epic  in  1384  lines,  written  pro- 
bably in  Egypt  before  400  a.d.,  and  treating  select 
incidents  in  the  voyage  of  Jason.  Orpheus,  bard, 
prophet  and  enchanter,  is  the  central  figure :  his 
mysterious  power  over  the  world  of  gods,  spirits  and 
men  is  the  central  motive  of  the  whole.  The  Lithica, 
in  768  hexameters,  composed  probably  soon  after  the 
death  of  Julian  in  363  a.d.,  celebrates  the  talismanic 
properties  of  rare  or  precious  stones,  and  vindicates 
magic  science  from  the  disrepute  into  which  it  is 
falling.  The  eighty-seven  Hymns,  sometimes  styled 
'Orphic,'  can  have  nothing  in  common  with  the 
Orphic  hymns  which  old  Greek  writers  mention  in 
connexion  with  an  Orphic  ritual.  The  hymns  in  our 
collection  represent  the  tendency  of  the  later  Neopla- 
tonists  to  resolve  the  old  Greek  deities  into  abstract  or 
mystic  formulas ;  and  few  of  them,  perhaps,  are  older 
than  350  a.d. 


160  GREEK  LITERATURE.  [part  in. 

23.  The  Greek  Anthology  brings  together  epi- 
grams and  short  pieces  ranging  over  about  1000  years, 
— from  Simonides  of  Ceos  (490  B.C.)  to  the  sixth  century 
of  our  era.  Maximus  Planudes,  a  monk  of  Constan- 
tinople (1330  a.d.),  put  together  a  collection,  founded 
on  that  of  Agathias  (550  a.d.),  in  seven  books.  This 
was  the  only  one  till,  in  1606,  the  scholar  Saumaise, 
better  known  as  Salmasius,  found  a  manuscript  in  the 
library  of  the  Elector  Palatine  at  Heidelberg,  contain- 
ing another  Greek  Anthology,  put  together  by  Con- 
stantinus  Cephalas,  about  920  a.d.  This  is  now  known 
as  the  Palatine  Anthology ;  and  it  is  now  seen  that 
Planudes  had,  in  large  measure,  merely  rearranged  or 
abridged  it.  Love,  art,  mourning  for  the  dead,  the 
whole  range  of  human  interests  and  sympathies,  lend 
leaves  to  this  garland  of  Greek  song. 

24.  Early  Christian  writers  occasionally  quote  the 
Sibylline  Oracles,  regarding  these,  apparently,  as 
genuine  utterances  of  a  heathen  prophetess  who  some- 
times became  the  involuntary  mouth-piece  of  divine 
truth.  Sibyl  (usually  explained  as  '  Counsel  of  Zeus') 
was  a  name  given  by  the  Greeks  to  an  inspired  being 
with  various  local  habitations.  The  mosaic  pavement 
of  the  Cathedral  at  Siena  represents  the  whole  series  of 
famous  Sibyls,  and  illustrates  the  recognition  accorded 
by  the  earlier  Church  to  this  pagan  vehicle  of  revela- 
tion— whose  testimony  the  old  funeral  hymn,  'Dies 
irae,'  associated  with  that  of  David.  The  'Sibylline 
Books'  of  Rome — said  to  have  been  brought  by  the 
Sibyl  to  Tarquin,  and  consulted  in  times  of  difficulty  by 
the  Senate — were  destroyed  by  fire  in  82  b.c.  A  new 
collection  was  then  put  together  from  Sibylline  books 
preserved  in  other  places.  This  second  collection, 
after  several  revisions,  was  finally  burned  in  the  reign 
of  Honorius  (395 — 423  a.d.)  The  existing  '  Oracles,' 
in  Greek  hexameter  verse,  are  by  Jewish  or  Christian 
writers,  ranging  in  date  from  about  170  B.C.  to  700 
a.d.,  who  seem  to  have  aimed  at  reproducing  certain 


CHAP,  ii.]  FROM  AUGUSTUS    TO  JUSTINIAN.        161 

traits  of  style  or  form — such  as  the  use  of  acrostics — 
which  belonged  to  the  old  Sibylline  oracles.  We  have 
twelve  of  the  fourteen  books  once  extant:  books  ix. 
and  x.  are  lost.  The  third  and  fifth  books  express,  in 
the  form  of  prophecy,  the  Jewish  longing — quickened 
by  the  visible  decline  of  Hellenism  under  Alexander's 
successors — for  a  political  Restorer  of  Israel.  Other 
books  predict  the  history  of  the  world  from  the  Flood 
(in  i.  and  II.,  probably  the  latest  of  all,  the  Sibyl  is 
the  daughter-in-law  of  Noah), — foretell  the  triumph 
of  Christianity, — and  allude  to  the  belief  that  Christ 
shall  reign  on  earth  for  a  thousand  years. 

25.  As  the  literature  of  Greek  culture  had  gra- 
dually lost  its  significance,  a  constantly  greater  import- 
ance had  accrued  to  the  Greek  Literature  of 
Christianity,  represented  by  the  Epistles,  Homilies 
and  learned  works  of  the  Fathers,  and  by  Ecclesias- 
tical Histories  such  as  those  of  Eusebius,  Socrates 
and  Sozomen.  The  relations  between  the  declining 
and  the  rising  literature  passed  through  two  great 
phases.  The  Christian  writers  who  immediately  suc- 
ceeded the  Apostolic  age,  true  to  its  example,  had  not 
ignored  either  the  humanising  value  of  Greek  letters 
or  the  theological  interest  of  Greek  thought.  Justin 
Martyr,  Origen  and,  above  all,  Clement  of  Alexandria 
had  in  their  different  ways  claimed  recognition  for 
the  endeavours  of  the  Greek  search  after  truth. 

26.  But  towards'  the  end  of  the  third  century  a 
different  spirit  began  to  appear.  While  Neoplatonists 
like  Plotinus  alleged  that  philosophy  had  anticipated 
revelation,  Christian  writers  like  Eusebius  maintained 
that  whatever  was  good  in  Greek  thought  had  come  to 
it  through  the  Hebrew  Scriptures.  The  progressive 
estrangement  of  the  Christian  laity  from  Greek  letters, 
and  the  divergence  of  spoken  from  written  Greek  at 
Constantinople,  were  the  two  great  causes  which  in 
the  fourth  century  hastened  the  decay  of  literary 
Hellenism.    Yet  the  greatest  Christian  Fathers  of  that 


1 62  GREEK  LITERATURE.  [part  in. 

century,  Gregory  of  Nazianzus,  Basil,  his  brother 
Gregory  of  Nyssa,  and  Chrysostom  were  trained  by 
Greek  masters  in  the  art  of  expression — that  art  in 
which  all  men  still  felt  the  power  of  ancient  Greece ; 
and  the  matured  eloquence  of  the  preacher  first  issued 
from  the  schools  of  Antioch  and  Athens. 

27.  In  the  Christian  Greek  Literature  of  the 
Middle  or  Byzantine  period  (529 — 1453  a.d.)  the 
classical  beauty  of  form  and  purity  of  style  disappear. 
Learned  writers,  generally  ecclesiastics,  compile  an- 
nals, works  on  Grammar,  Mathematics,  Medicine, 
miscellanies  or  criticisms  of  the  Old  Literature ;  while 
by  the  side  of  these  labours  a  school  of  popular 
poetry  at  last  springs  up, — unlike  the  classical  poetry 
in  form  and  spirit, — and  links  the  Medieval  on  to  the 
Modern  Literature. 

For  350  years  after  the  capture  of  Constantinople 
by  the  Ottoman  Turks  (1453)  the  Greeks  had  small 
hope  of  regaining  independence.  Their  efforts  were 
concentrated  on  doing  what  they  could  to  save  their 
nationality  from  being  effaced :  above  all,  on  pre- 
serving the  two  things  by  which  it  was  chiefly  marked 
— their  language  and  their  religion.  Hence  the  Greek 
literature  of  those  centuries  was  mainly  occupied 
either  with  philological  studies  of  the  old  Greek 
writers,  or  with  Theology.  Gennadius,  the  first  Patri- 
arch after  the  Turkish  conquest,  founded  at  Con- 
stantinople a  'National  School'  which  did  much  to 
keep  alive  the  higher  culture  through  a  difficult  time, 
and  which,  before  1700,  had  become  famous.  From 
1 7 16  onwards  the  Sultans  appointed  Fanariots — i.e. 
Greeks  of  Constantinople,  so  called  from  the  quarter 
of  the  city  in  which  they  lived — to  govern  the  two 
Rouman  Principalities  of  Wallachia  and  Moldavia; 
and  the  courts  of  these  Fanariot  princes  became 
centres  of  encouragement  for  Greek  literary  effort. 

Then,  at  the  beginning  of  this  century,  hopes  of 
freedom  began  to  stir.     Far-seeing  friends  of  Greece 


chap,  ii.]  FROM  AUGUSTUS   TO  JUSTINIAN.       163 

such  as  Koraes  helped  to  restore  the  purity  and  vigour 
of  the  language,  and  so  to  render  it  a  more  efficient 
instrument  of  national  regeneration.  A  new  literary 
energy  set  in.  From  1800  to  182 1  this  had  chiefly 
a  preparatory  purpose  :  there  was  not  as  yet  a  social 
life  to  which  it  could  be  practically  applied.  The  War 
of  Independence,  which  began  in  182 1,  led  in  1827  to 
some — not  all — of  the  Greeks  becoming  free.  Liberated 
Greece  had  first  to  organise  education  :  the  next  im- 
pulse was  to  make  up  lost  way  by  translating  foreign 
books  into  Greek.  During  the  last  fifty  years  Greek 
writers  have  contributed  to  almost  every  province  of 
letters,  especially  to  Philology,  Archaeology  and  His- 
tory: and  there  is  good  reason  to  hope  that  the  literature 
of  Greece — in  its  recovered  vigour,  still  so  young — will 
continue  to  enrich  the  language  that  it  inherits1. 

28.  The  great  original  work  of  the  Greek  mind 
in  art  and  literature  had  been  done  before  300  b.c. 
But  a  wider,  if  a  less  brilliant,  activity  remained  for  it. 
Rome,  as  a  Roman  poet  says,  made  the  whole  earth 
to  be  one  people.  And  as  this  was  done  by  the 
military  and  political  genius  of  Rome,  so,  within  the 
iron  framework  which  she  wrought,  a  universal 
culture  was  animated  by  the  elastic  intelligence  and 
interpreted  by  the  flexible  language  of  Greece.  From 
Rome,  along  with  a  noble  literature,  the  modern 
world  derives  a  continuous  tradition  of  law  and 
government :  from  Greece  it  traces  the  ancient 
lineage  and  the  still  fresh  inspirations  of  an  intellec- 
tual and  spiritual  life. 

1  An  excellent  survey  of  the  period  from  1453  to  the 
present  day  will  be  found  in  the  '  History  of  Neo-hellenic  Litera- 
ture' by  A.  R.  Rangabe'  (Berlin,  1877). 


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Aristotle. 

Antiphon. 
Andocides. 

Lysias. 

Isocrates. 

Isaeus. 

Demosthenes. 

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Some  English  Translations  of  Greek  Authors. 

( Where  more  than  one  Translation  of  the  same  work  is  named,  the 
order  is  alphabetical.) 

Homer,  Iliad,  Lord  Derby.  Pope.  Odyssey,  Worsley. 
Hesiod,  T.  Cooke  (fi756).  Theognis,  Frere.  Pindar,  Baring. 
Morice.  E.  Myers.  Aeschylus,  Miss  Swanwick.  Agamemnon, 
Robert  Browning.  Fitzgerald.  Milman.  Prometheus,  Mrs 
Webster.  Sophocles,  L.  Campbell.  Plumptre.  Euripides, 
R.  Potter  (ti8o4).  Bacchae,  Milman.  Thorold  Rogers.  E.  S. 
Shuckburgh.  Medea,  Mrs  Webster.  Alcestis,  in  'Balaustion', 
Robert  Browning.  Hecuba  ('A  Trojan  Queen's  Revenge'), 
Beesley.  Aristophanes,  Acharnians,  Knights,  Birds,  Frogs, 
Peace,  Frere.  Birds,  B.  H.  Kennedy.  Peace,  Wasps,  Rogers. 
Herodotus,  Rawlinson.  Thucy aides,  Crawley.  Dale.  Demos- 
thenes, C.  R.  Kennedy.  Plato,  Jowett.  Gorgias,  Cope. 
Republic,  Davies  and  Vaughan.  Aristotle,  Ethics,  Williams. 
Organon,  Poste.  Poetics,  Twining.  Politics,  Books  i.  III.  iv. 
(vil.),  Bolland,  with  Essays  by  Lang.  Theocritus,  Calverley. 
Bion,  Moschus,  Apollonius  Rhodius,  Husaeus,  F.  Fawkes 
(+1777).  Plutarch,  Lives,  Clough.  North.  Moralia,  Goodwin. 
Epictetus  {Discourses,  Manual  and  fragments),  George  Long. 
The  Thoughts  of  Marcus  Aurelius  Antoninus,  George  Long. 

As  special  Introductions  to  Greek  Authors  the  volumes  in 
the  series  of  'Ancient  Classics  for  English  Readers/  edited  by 
the  Rev.  W.  Lucas  Collins,  can  be  recommended. 


PRIMERS 

IN  SCIENCE,  HISTORY,  AND  LITERATURE. 

18mo.     Flexible  cloth,  45  cents  each. 


SCIENCE    PRIMERS. 

Edited  by  Professors  HUXLEY,  ROSCOE,  and  BALFOUR 
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ley, P.  R.  S. 

Chemistry.  Prof.  H.  E.  Roscoe, 
F.  R.  8. 

Physics.  Prof.  Balfottr  Stew- 
art, F.  R.  8. 

Physical  Geography.  Prof. 
A.  Gkikie,  F.  R.  S. 

Geology.  Prof.  A.  Geikie,  F.  R.S. 

Pnysiology.  M.  Foster,  M.  D., 
F.R.S.  Hygiene.  R.  S. 
Tract. 


Astronomy.      J.  N.  Lockyeb, 

F.  K.  8. 

Botany.  SirJ.D.  Hooker,  F.R.S. 
Logic.  Prof.  W.  S.  Jevons,  F.R.S. 
Inventional  Geometry.     W. 

G.  Spencer. 
Pianoforte.    Franklin  Taylor. 
Political  Economy.    Prof.  W. 

S.  Jevons,  F.  R.  8. 
Natural  Resources   of  the 
United  States.    J.  H.  Pat- 
ton,  A.  M. 


HISTORY    PRIMERS. 

Edited  by  J.  R.  GREEN,  M.  A.,  Examiner  in  the  School  of  Modem 
History  at  Oxford. 


Greece.    C.  A.  Fyffe,  M.  A. 
Rome.    M.  Creiguton,  M.  A. 
Europe.    E.  A.  Freeman,  D.  C.  L. 
Old  Greek   Life.     J.  P.  Ma- 

HAFFY,  M.  A. 

Roman  Antiquities.   Prof.  A. 

6.  WlLKtKS. 

L.ITERATUR 

Edited  by  ,T.  R. 

English  Grammar.  R.  Mor- 
ris, LL.  D. 

English  Literature.  Rev. 
Stopfobd  A.  Brooke,  M.  A. 

Philology.    J.  Peilb,  M.  A. 

Classical  Geography.  M.  F. 
Tozeb. 

Shakespeare.  Prof.  E.  Oowden. 

Studies  in  Bryant.  J.  Alden. 


Geography. 
F.  R.G.  S. 


George   Grove, 


France.    Charlotte  M.  Yonce. 
Mediaeval  Civilization.  Prof. 
G.  B.  Asahs. 


E    PRIMERS. 

GREEN,  M.  A. 

Greek  Literature.  Prof.  R.  C. 
Jkbb. 

English  Grammar  Exer- 
cises. R-  Morris,  LL.  D.,  and 
H.  C.  Bowen,  M.  A. 

Homer.  Right  Hon.  W.  E.  Glad- 
stone. 

English  Composition.    Prof. 

J.  NlCHOL. 


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Fontana's  Elementary  Grammar  of  the  Italian  Language. 

12mo 1  30 

Foresti's  Italian  Reader.     12mo 1  30 

Meadows's  Italian-English  Dictionary.     A  new  revised 

edition half  bound,  2  50 

Millhouse's   New  English-and-Italian  Pronouncing  and 
Explanatory  Dictionary.     Second  edition,  revised 

and  improved.  2  thick  vols.,  small  8vo.  .half  bound,  5  25 
Nuovo  Tesoro  di  Scherzi,  Massime,  Proverbi,  etc.     1 

vol.,  12mo Cloth,  1  50 

Ollendorff's  New  Method  of  Learning  Italian.     Edited 

by  F.  Foresti.     12mo 1  30 

Key  to  do 85 

Primary  Lessons.     18mo 65 

Roemer's  Polyglot  Reader  (in  Italian).     Translated  by 

Dr.  Botta 1  30 

Key  to  same,  in  English 1  30 

SPANISH. 

Ahn's  Spanish  Grammar 85 

De  Tornos's  Spanish  Method 1  25 

Ollendorff's  Spanish  Grammar 1  00 

Prendergast's  Mastery  Series — Spanish 45 

Scheie  de  Vere's  Spanish  Grammar 1  00 

Velazquez's  New  Spanish  Reader 1  26 

Velazquez's  Pronouncing  Spanish  Dictionary,  8vo 5  00 

"                     "                 "                "          12mo 1  50 

New  York :  D.  APPLETON  &  CO.,  1,  3,  &  5  Bond  Street. 


APPLETONS'    READERS. 


SOME  DISTINGUISHING   FEATURES. 

Modern  Methods  made  easy.— Education  is  a  progressive  tci- 
Once.  Methods  of  the  last  century  must  be  discarded.  The  question 
"  How  shall  we  teach  reading?  "  is  fully  answered  in  these  book*, 
end  teachers  who  have  adopted  and  followed  this  method  havs 
greatly  improved  their  schools. 

Word  and  Phonic  Method.— By  taking  at  first  words  with 
which  the  child  is  quite  familiar,  and  which  contain  sounds  easily 
distinguished  and  continually  recurring,  both  teacher  and  pupil  will 
find  the  sounds  a  great  help  in  reading  new  words  as  well  as  in 
acquiring  a  distinct  articulation. 

Spelling.— Words  selected  from  the  lessons  are  given  for  spell- 
ing with  each  piece,  thus  affording  the  best  opportunity  for  oral 
and  written  spelling-lessons  as  well  as  for  definitions.  In  the  Third, 
Fourth,  and  Fifth  Readers,  graded  exercises  in  spelling  analysis, 
together  with  daily  lessons  of  words  often  misspelled  or  mispro- 
nounced, are  placed  in  the  Appendix  for  constant  study.  With 
these  Readers  no  "  Speller  "  will  be  needed. 

Illustrations.— The  illustrations  are  beautiful  and  attractive, 
and  are  well  adapted  to  serve  as  a  basis  for  the  language  and 
thought  lessons  that  are  so  prominent  in  these  books. 

Helps  for  Teachers. — Teachers  will  find  in  these  books  a  simple 
plan  that  will  greatly  aid  them  ;  while  the  notes,  questions,  and 
suggestions  will  help  the  teacher  to  impart  tbe  most  instruction  and 
the  Dest  culture,  which  makes  the  reading-lesson  something  more 
than  a  mere  naming  of  words. 

Oral  Beading.— Proper  oral  expression  depends  on  the  sense. 
Get  the  sense  of  each  extract  and  the  correct  oral  expression  will  be 
an  easy  matter.  This  is  the  key-note  to  Professor  Bailey's  excellent 
lessons  on  accent,  emphasis,  inflection,  and  general  vocal  expres- 
sion, that  are  placed  as  reading-lessons  in  the  Third,  Fourth,  and 
Fifth  Readers. 

Selections.— The  selections  embrace  gems  of  literature  from  lead- 
ing authors.  No  other  Headers  include  such  a  wide  range  of  thought, 
showing  from  the  simple  stories  for  children  in  the  earlier  books,  to 
the  extracts  from  the  best  authors  in  the  Fourth  and  Fifth,  unity  of 
design  and  a  just  appreciation  of  the  needs  of  our  schools. 

Great  Success.— Since  the  publication  of  these  Readers,  their 
eale  has  averaged  nearly  a  million  a  year,  which  is  unprecedented  in 
the  sale  of  school-books. 

Endorsements.— These  Readers  have  received  the  endorsement 
of  nearly  every  educator  of  note  in  the  United  States,  but  the  best 
proof  of  their  merits  is  found  in  the  great  improvement  manifested 
•verywhere  tbey  are  used. 

D.  APPLETON  &  CO.,  Publishers, 

New  York,  Boston,  Chicago,  and  San  Francisco. 


APPLETONS' 

Elementary  Reading  Charts. 

Forty-seven  Numbers. 
Prepared  by  REBECCA  D.  RICKOFF. 


WITH  PATENT  SUPPOETEE. 


Designed  to  make  learning  to  read  a  pleasant  pastime. 

Designed  to  cultivate  the  observing  powers  of  children. 

Designed  to  teach  the  first  steps  of  reading  in  the  right  way. 

Designed  to  train  the  mind  of  the  child  by  philosophical 
methods. 

Designed  to  furnish  the  primary  classes  with  a  variety  of 
interesting  occupations  in  school-hours. 

Every  step  in  advance  is  in  a  logical  ort'er  of  progression 
and  development. 

The  beautiful  and  significant  illustrations  are  an  especially 
noticeable  and  attractive  feature  of  these  charts. 

Every  chart  in  the  series  has  in  view  a  definite  object,  which 
is  thoroughly  and  systematically  developed. 

Pictures,  objects,  and  things  are  employed,  rather  than  ab- 
stract rules  and  naked  type. 

They  are  in  accord  with  the  educational  spirit  of  the  day, 
and  with  the  methods  followed  by  the  best  instructors. 

They  are  the  only  charts  planned  with  special  reference  to 
the  cultivation  of  language  and  the  power  of  expression. 

They  follow  the  natural  method  of  teaching,  appealing  to 
those  faculties  of  the  child  that  are  most  easily  awakened,  and 
inciting  correct  mental  processes  at  the  outset. 

These  charts  introduce  a  new  and  improved  mode  of  sus- 
pension while  in  use,  a  feature  of  much  practical  value. 

These  charts  should  be  in  every  primary-school  room  in  the 
country. 

D.  APPLETON  &  CO.,  Publishers, 

New  York)  Boston,  Chicago,  and  San  Francisco. 


APPLETONS' 

STANDARD  SYSTEM  OF  PENMANSHIP, 

DESIGNED  TO  PRODUCE 

FREE  PRACTICAL  WRITING  IN  THE  SCHOOL-ROOM. 

PREPARED    BY 

LYMAN  D.  SMITH. 


Lead-Pencil  Course,  3  Nos. 
Short  Course,  Tracing,  2  Noa. 


Short  Course,  7  Nos. 
Grammar  Course,  7  Nos, 


LEADING  FEATURLS. 


1.  Writing  made  the  ex- 
pression of  thought.  Word- 
building  and  sentence-building 
constituting  interesting  lan- 
guage-lessons. 

2.  Writing  taught  syntheti- 
cally. No  tedious  drills  on  parts 
of  letters  or  isolated  letters. 

3.  The  movement  drill  ; 
whereby  pupils  acquire  with 
certainty  the  real  writing  move- 
ment. 

4.  No  exaggerated  style  of 


writing,  which  leads  a  pupil  to 
draw,  rather  than  to  write. 

5.  Graded  columns ;  where- 
by the  scope  of  movement  en- 
ables the  pupil  to  gradually  and 
naturally  acquire  the  fcre-arm 
movement. 

6.  Better  gradation  than  is 
found  in  any  other  series. 

7.  They  are  in  accordance 
with  the  modern  methods  of 
teaching. 


This  system,  thus  dealing  with  whole  letters,  words,  and 
sentences,  rapidly  advances  the  pupil  by  steps  that  are  natural, 
progressive,  graded,  clear,  and  attractive. 


INTRODUCTORY  PRICES. 
Lead-Pencil  Course,  Three  Numbers,  per  dozen 
Short  Course,  Tracing,  Two  Numbers,  "       " 
Short  Course,  Seven  Numbers,  "       " 

Grammar  Course,  Seven  Numbers,       "       " 


,    84  cents. 
,     84      " 
.     84      " 
81  20 


Sample  Copies  of  either  Series  will  be  forwarded,  post-paid,  for  ex- 
amination, on  receipt  of  the  introductory  price. 

D.  APPLETON  4.  CO.,  Publishers, 

New  York,  Boston,  Chicago,  and  San  Franciaeo. 


BOTANICAL  WORKS. 


Greene's  Primary  Botany. 

Illustrated.     4to.     Cloth,  $1.10. 

Greene's  Class-Book  of  Botany. 

Cloth,  $1.70. 

Henslow's  Botanical  Charts, 

Adapted  for  Use  in  the  United  States.  By  Ei.iza  A. 
Youmans.  Six  in  set,  handsomely  eolored.  Per  set, 
$15.75.     Key  to  do.     25  cents. 

J.  D.  Hooker's  Botany. 

Forming  a  volume  in  the  "Science  Primers."  18mo. 
Flexible  cloth,  45  cents. 

Eliza  A.  Youmans's  First  Book  of  Botany. 

Designed  to  cultivate  the  Observing  Power  of  Chililren. 
With  numerous  Illustrations.  12mo.  1C7  pages.  85 
cents. 

Eliza  A.  Youmans's  Second  Book  of  Bot- 
any. 

12mo.     Cloth,  $1.30. 

Lindley  and   Moore's  Treasury  of  Bot- 
any: 

A  Popular  Dictionary  of  the  Vegetable  Kingdom.  With 
numerous  Illustrations.  2  vols.,  lGmo.  Cloth,  $0.00. 
Half  calf,  $8.00. 


New  York :   D.  APPLETON  &  CO.,  1,  8,  &  f>  Bond  Street 


WORKS  OF  ARABELLA  B.  BUCKLEY7 


The  Winners  in  Life's  Race; 

or,  THE  GKEAT  BACKBONED  FAMILY.  With  nu- 
merous Illustrations.     12mo.     Cloth,  gilt,  $1.50. 

Life  and  Her  Children. 

Glimpses  of  Animal  Life  from  the  Amoeba  to  the  Insects. 
With  upward  of  One  Hundred  Illustrations.  12mo.  Cloth, 
|1.50. 

Fairy-Land  of  Science. 

With  numerous  Illustrations.     12mo.     Cloth,  $1.50. 

"It  deserves  to  take  a  permanent  place  in  the  literature  of 
youth." — London  Times. 

"  So  interesting  that,  having  once  opened  the  book,  we  do 
not  know  how  to  leave  off  reading." — Saturday  Review. 

A  Short   History  of  Natural   Science   and 
the  Progress  of  Discovery, 

FROM  THE  TIME  OF  THE  GREEKS  TO  THE  PRES- 
ENT DAY.     For  Schools  and  Young  Persons.     With  Illus- 
trations.    12mo.     Cloth,  $2.00. 
"  A  most  admirable  little  volume.     It  is  a  classified  resume 
of  the  chief  discoveries  in  physical  science.      To  the  young 
student  it  is  a  hook  to  open  up  new  worlds  with  every  chap- 
ter. ' ' —  Graphic. 

"The  book  will  be  a  valuable  aid  in  the  study  of  the. ele- 
ments of  natural  science." — Journal  of  Education. 


For  safe  by  all  booksellers  ;  or  sent  by  mail,  post-paid,  on  receipt  of  price. 


New  York:  D.  APPLETON  &  CO.,  1,  3,  &  5  Bond  Street. 


